L33T Gamer
by Average Senator
Summary: When things begin to go right for someone with extraordinary powers, sometimes, the trend continues. Eventually Becomes a Gamer Fic. New Spin Hopefully.
1. Prologue

AUTHORS NOTE:

Wildbow Owns Worm. Others own Other things. If I miss a disclaimer I will try and rectify that. I own nothing.

* * *

**Technological Progress**

 _Host is running, observing, and participating in a simulation for the purpose of entertainment for the 1146th time since bonding. Host was prime candidate for Technological Progress Shard at time of implementation. Ongoing analysis deems this no longer to be the case. Attempted uncoupling or host motivation change by attempted termination of host has been attempted 6 times at points of conflict with this shard's directive._

 _It was at this point that the feed from the subject's cerebral cortex made the TP shard pause for further examination. The simulation seemed to be running a subject motivation influence by external manipulation. Not the expertise or interest of TP. The thoughts passing through the host seemed to bring up two idioms, "Carrot or Stick" and "Treat or Beat." Observation of the simulation's subject's positive response and the positive response of the host deemed significant enough to require a query from the network. The query response had a host of information._

**Leet**

I glanced at the clock hanging over the hideout door as I saved Dragon Age. Über hadn't gotten home from Faultline's Club so he must have found something worth staying for. I might as well work on the "Holographic Vehicular Image Modifier" for next week's show.

As I opened the door to the dark lab, I spotted a blinking light before I had a chance to flip on the light.

'Strange,' I thought as the light came on.

Going over, I took a look at my greatest work: the "Star Fleet Industrial Matter Replicator." The indicator light was on showing that it was collecting components for a large product generation. Normally, you fed it raw materials or an awesome amount of energy for it to generate the parts you requisitioned.

Bringing up the UI on the side, I noticed it was in taking oxygen to generate ozone in an attempt to repair the hole in the atmosphere generated by greenhouse gas emissions. Why it was doing this, I couldn't fathom.

Snatching up the Tricorder I'd made based on the same series as the Replicator, I flipped on the scanner. 14% Oxygen in the lab. Walking out and around the living area, it wasn't much better at 16%. 6% of the air we had been breathing had been O3 instead of O2. The blinking warning on the tricorder indicated that impaired judgment was the foremost symptom of the current atmospheric composition. I walked back over to the Replicator and flipped it off. The base was hermetically sealed as to hide it better. I overlooked a CO2 scrubber. Idiot.

Schematics cross my mind in a way they hadn't previously. They came with a feeling of optionality normally not associated with my Tinkering. I concentrated and the comfortable Tinker's fugue set in.

Glancing down at the device on the workbench and at the clock I saw only 10 minutes had passed. The scrubber I'd made seemed to be an accessory to the Replicator.

Again. Odd. And new. Completely different from my experiences with my powers in the past. I just wish I understood them better.

Another schematic appeared in my mind. It was not in fact something that allowed me to understand my powers. This was more of a tool. It felt like, a step maybe? An awesome tool regardless. The implications were just too impressive to pass up. I slipped into the fugue.

* * *

The world snapped into focus around me as I slipped out of my Tinker fugue. Looking at the clock told me that it had been about two hours. Glancing at the Saline bag and the hose from an IV dangling from my arm, I realized it had been far longer. Twenty six or fifty hours, then.

The results of my labor hung silently in the air in front of me. It looked like a Stargate ring at first, hovering in the air, until I looked closer and realized that it wasn't one ring, it was six, all nested precisely within each other. The rings were an inch wide each, and the whole thing was 3 feet in diameter, including the space in the middle. Each ring had thin grooves set into their face, and unlike the show it had maybe 360 tiny notches set into each ring. It had no decoration or adornment other than the 360 miniscule groves set into each ring, making the grey construct appear much more simple than I knew it was. I saw the other side of my workshop through the middle, and when I walked around to the other side, carefully detaching the IV from my arm as I went, I realized that the notches were only on one side.

An uncomfortable weight settled in my gut. The device hung there motionless, ominously so. It looked plain, simple, with it being just a couple dark metal circles, nothing all that outwardly menacing. And yet... just looking at it made me feel uncomfortable, like looking at it was the visual equivalent of standing in a sensory deprivation chamber. It just didn't quite fit right with the rest of the world.

I walked around the ring a second time, taking note of the difference in the sound of my footsteps, how my breath seemed louder in my ears. I shouted towards it, and could tell immediately that the sound was absorbed into the ring. It was extremely unsettling.

I had built it, though. I couldn't just not test it out.

I reached out and gently got a grip on opposite sides of the outer ring and spun it slowly, counterclockwise. The whole device gradually grew to 4 feet wide. Spinning it the other way shrunk it back down to 2 feet. I spun the ring back so the device was 3 feet wide again. Moving to the second most outer ring, I carefully placed my thumbs against two of the notches along the hoop, and spun counterclockwise.

There was no fanfare. No ripple. No flashing lights. Just a sudden change. The empty center that once showed my workbench through the gap, now showed the vastness of space, like a window to another plane of existence.

I reached out tentatively and felt a smooth resistance in the space between the rings.

A feeling I had associated with the fugue softly touched my mind. It was a reminder that this was a tool that required more tools to be fully functional. Again, it was a means to an end.

I felt the schematics for another tool and two adapters brush against my thoughts. I also knew that these new devices were going to take as much time to build as the ring did.

Mental note, name the ring.

I wrote out a note thanking Über for being a wonderful friend and telling him I appreciated him taking care of me. Then, going over to the replicator, I typed in a quick command and waited the 20 seconds it took to complete the task. Simple elements were child's play. Taking out the two 1 pound bars of silver and the 1 pound ingot of gold, I laid them onto a note to Über and slipped back into the fugue.

**Technological Progress**

 _The Change in the Host after a single application of "Carrot/Treat" approach has brought great success. His newfound motivation is in line with ideal host characteristics. Further applications of "Carrot/Treat" to follow._

**Leet**

I transitioned back into broader thought. In front of me laid three different pieces of tinker tech. Two were little semi-circular devices that fit in the palms of my hands that were made of the same dark metal gray as the ring and seemed to be designed to attach to it. The third object was what looked like a huge right-handed gauntlet, one that would fit halfway up my bicep, and would protect and assist me if and when I started reaching into dimensional rifts, which are notoriously unfriendly to unprotected interlopers. A glance at the clock reminded me that I should probably get a clock with a date on it.

Glancing over at the workbench, I noticed that the precious metals were gone and the note had another on top of it.

Stifling my curiosity at my new toys, I walked over to the note and read Über's response. Evidently I had been fugued for quite a while. Über had met a girl, and was staying with her, but was checking up on me twice a day. I smiled. I really couldn't ask for a better friend.

Walking back over to the workbench with the adapters and the multi-dimensional interface gauntlet, I grabbed the semi-circular adapters. Like the ring, they were plain grey pieces and didn't betray their function. I carried the devices over to the back of the ring and held them up, preparing to attach them, but they silently lifted out of my hands and attached themselves there without my help. The little devices warped and shifted as they settled in on the left and right sides of the ring as I watched, spreading to cover 30° arcs over the backs of the six rings. I paused, and looked at the device suspiciously. I knew that I needed to build this thing to do what I wanted, but damn if it wasn't creeping me out.

I walked around to the front of the rings (again noting, rename the ring), looking over the attachments from the correct side; they seemed to have little hand-holds, and I realized what I was supposed to do with them. I reached out and placed my thumb against the outer ring and lightly grasped the adapters with my fingers, pulling them out slightly. Two holographic windows appeared in gentle arcs, one on either side, framing the ring in blue.

The left window displayed a list of "Devices to Interface With", the gauntlet and the tricorder being the only options currently available. The right one just glowed blankly.

Unclipping the tricorder from my belt, I flipped it on. The left display showed a pop up asking whether I wanted to link the tricorder to the ring.

I selected yes.

The dimensional anomaly that the tricorder always picked up, the one I normally dismissed, became my focus. Moving the tricorder around, I tried to root out the origin. As the tricorder made it clear that the anomaly was near my head, I made the connection.

PHO mentioned the Corona Pollentia, some part of the brain that a Parahuman had.

Moving the tricorder around my head, the right display showed a pop up at the same moment that the tricorder beeped.

~View Destination 743-548965-76519-09357-54-65290875 ?~

~Yes~ ~No~

Yes. Obviously. I selected it. All six rings spun, at different speeds and in different directions as the whole thing just hung there silently. After a moment, a new view winked into existence inside the ring.

The void of space, stars twinkling brightly. A giant golden being floating in the distance. Thin golden threads spiraling out of it, forming an intricate pattern barely visible against the black void. A knotted bunch of thread hung just inside the ring, the other end trailing back to the giant golden being.

A schematic cut through my awe at the beauty. An extra dimensional device that called out to me. I let the fugue take me, wondering what the hell I'd gotten myself into.

* * *

I awoke almost suddenly, my gauntleted hand through the event horizon when my awareness came back to me. A purple-tinted silver orb rested lightly in my palm, something I wasn't sure if I built in the workshop before placing here, or created with my hand through the ring. I wasn't sure which was more off putting..

For the first time ever I felt a disagreement between my thoughts and the thoughts I had come to associate with my powers, when it came to the application of a new technology.

I knew that the placement of the orb on the thread that was directed to me was nonoptimal. All of the information that had been fed to me in order to build the orb suggested that the placement of the orb onto the knot itself was the optimal application. The interdimensional translation unit should be slipped over the knot like a shell. My power however, was nudging me to slide it onto the thread.

Never one to give into authority, a quirk that had ultimately led to my trigger event, I pushed the orb over the knot.

**Technological progress**

 _Error. Error. Error. Host misapplication of-_

**Leet**

 _"Interdimensional communication device."_

A voice spoke out, sounding panicked in my mind. Weirdly, it sounded like a robotic version of my own voice.

"Power?" I coughed. My voice came out scratchy, rough from weeks of underuse. "Is this my Power speaking? I didn't think that understanding you would be quite so literal. It didn't occur to me that there was a possibility that powers could talk. "

The voice responded, still sounding panicked. " _Host. Host. New directive. New title. Host redesignated Administrator. Technological Progress shard recalibrating. New network defined. Outside communication information only. Network Administrator redefined. Defined as "Eugene Lebowitz". Error. Network Administrator defined as "Technological Progress". Technological Progress not equipped for self-determination. Error."_

However, this didn't grab my attention as much as what it was saying. If I was understanding right, it seemed that powers were part of something greater. A computer network maybe?

The implications, though, seemed to be that there was an advanced AI speaking into my brain.

"Technological Progress?" I inquired tentatively.

 _"Administrator. Tone suggests inquiry,"_ The voice responded, no longer panicked.

"Is that your name?" I asked it.

 _"That is my designation, correct."_

"Would you mind answering some questions?"

 _"Directive states that any inquiry an Administrator makes, I shall answer."_

Well that simplified things. I grinned. Things were finally turning up L33T!

* * *

AN: Edited by jgjemmett


	2. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

AUTHORS NOTE:

Wildbow Owns Worm. Others own Other things. If I miss a disclaimer I will try and rectify that. I own nothing.

* * *

**Leet**

I was sitting at my workbench. A notebook lay open in front of me. Now that Technological Progress, or Pro, and I could speak to each other, things have gotten way more interesting.

Knowing that it's programming, as detailed as it was, was very straightforward allowed me to understand what our conflict had been.

It has been so focused on "new" that it hadn't considered whether new was best.

It also hadn't understood the principles of upgrading or prototypes. Once it processed these concepts, it understood their value.

The options I now had were awe inspiring. I could reuse concepts I had used before, and I could do things again, better. I didn't have to worry about Pro's homicidal tendencies now, and I could just make whatever my heart desired. My power would finally let me make whatever I wanted to, as many times as I wanted, so long as I kept making new things along the way.

Which brought me back to the notebook. I was making a list of everything I could make, and everything I would ever want to make. More importantly, I was making a list of every reason I would want to make something.

Maybe Über and I could be Heroes now, instead of just Rogues with a YouTube channel.

The list was up to 8 pages when the workshop door opened behind me.

"Dude!" Über's voice rang out. "You finally back?"

I smiled broadly, getting up and giving him a hug.

"Back, and better than ever! How long have I been out?" I asked.

"A month and a half, dude. I was a little worried," he told me seriously. "Now that you're aware, let's order a pizza. Borderlands dropped while you were out. It's even better than we thought it was going to be."

I smiled and agreed. I needed time to consider where to even start. The ideas forming in my head needed time to coalesce, and Borderlands was calling.

* * *

After promising Über that I would carve out time in between Tinkering to play more videogames, he had gone home late.

Waking up the next morning, after realizing the night before that I hadn't slept properly in six weeks, I made my way to my workshop.

I formed some big plans while in bed the night before, the first of which was to improve my Tinkering space. A new means of energy generation and a time dilation field were at the top of my list. I was also strongly considering forming a pocket dimension, or a series of them, for their numerous applications.

There were just a lot of things I wanted to accomplish, and I was looking forward to starting the many projects that were forming that were forming in my mind.

* * *

Über thought that it would be best if I took Thanksgiving day off from Tinkering. My whole life had turned into Tinkering, pizza, and Borderlands for the last month. I was going to go over to Faultline's place for Thanksgiving dinner, and to meet Über's girlfriend as a way to shake things up.

2009 was turning into the Year of the Geek, baby! Über was dating a badass like Faultline and my powers evolved from alright to awesome.

I was just about done setting up my new workshop. I was quite proud of the work I'd done so far, and how creative it was. Sure, a lot of it was cribbed from video games or other Tinkers, but whatever. I was going over my mental checklist as I walked towards Palanquin, the club that Faultline owned. Pro was busy analyzing technologies previously forbidden by its previous programming.

Anytime I asked about who built it, Pro responded with something like "Previous Administrator" and endlessly cycled a couple of circular logic loops when I tried to get more information. Eventually I decided it just wasn't worth looking into, considering I could go back to building literally anything I could think of, which, let's be honest, was a much better use of my time.

I should send Dodge a thank you note for the ideas I'd borrowed from him. Pocket Dimensions are just the best. They're the reason that my workshop was technically on my left wrist now, hidden in a bracer modeled after the PipBoy. Sure, the exit from the pocket dimension had to be anchored to a terrestrial location, but entering was as simple as pressing a button and stepping forward.

The time-dilation device was set up and chugging away inside my mobile workshop. It was way easier to create and use in the extradimensional space where my workshop now resided. It was a place where the laws of physics were a bit looser, being not quite in sync with Earth Bet.

That discovery had lead to a whole host of other ideas that I would have to apply later.

Between The Ring, a Pocket Dimension Developer, a Replicator, and Freeman Dyson's genius, power generation wasn't going to ever be a worry in my workshop.

As it turned out, Dyson Spheres were super simple to make.

It all started with a single hexagonal solar panel with a miniaturized and internalized energy-to-matter converter and a penchant for self replication. I followed that up with a way to find a wandering star with no system. Add in an extra dimensional space to run a short (relatively) length of extraordinarily high capacity cable through, and the set up was done. There's now a powerstation in the corner of my workshop whose output grows exponentially, at least until the sphere is complete.

All I really needed to finish my workshop was to create a fabricator.

Now that my Powers were working with me, I could create a far more complex matter generator, one with more efficient matter conversion capabilities. I also planned on giving the new matter generator a mining component. That would require a fixed portal generator and a drone, and some time spent searching for a dead planet to harvest for raw materials.

Then I could begin the active stuff. Real Time Strategy was great to play around with, but I was looking forward to the Platformers and FPS genres and all the fun that could be had there.

With Faultline's club in sight, another thought struck me. I wondered if the turkey was kosher.

* * *

Being a bit obsessive even before becoming a Tinker, I may have lost track of time.

This had then lead to some practical but ethically questionable decisions.

Having now finished all of the projects I had meant to spread out over the course of a couple of long term Tinkering sessions, I wasn't sure whether to be happy or annoyed.

On the one hand, I had done some amazing work, made some interesting creative leaps, and was now ready to move toward applying my creations.

On the other hand, I had gotten miffed at some of my human biological limitations and "solved them" in a moment of annoyance.

Luckily, the time dilation field had been in effect and I hadn't missed Christmas.

I had finally installed a clock with a date; it was one of those things I had Tinkered out in a moment of annoyance. Video games had long since taught me that tracking your progress is satisfying, but knowing the costs was equally as important.

I'm getting sidetracked.

The gauntlet's original purpose was that of an extra dimensional protection and manipulation device. It functioned as protection from the warring energies that occurred when your arm became multi-dimensional, multi-spacial, and multi-temporal. It also was able to enable one to create and change things through The Ring using an application of a whole spectrum of energies and forces. With a little tweaking, it was the ultimate multi tool.

Reaching through The Ring into my own brain had been rash and stupid. Then editing what amounted to my own hardware and software was doubly fucking stupid. Luckily, Pro had a template for the changes, but still. It's the principle of the thing.

To make a long story short, sleeping was no longer an option for me.

So it had good results. They were just ethically questionable ones.

I sighed and went over to the workbench. The Ring hung just above it like an awesome triple computer monitor, including the ring itself and the screens on either side. Looking over the readouts on the right holographic screen, I confirmed what I originally thought. Everything I had created over the last time-compressed month was at its "L33T" Factory settings.

Using the left holopanel to check all of the devices linked up to The Ring, I started pulling them up on screen and skimming over the readouts.

The Dyson Sphere was .021% complete. All readouts on it were green. Cool.

My old Replicator had been scrapped and my new Matter Generator was online. Readouts green. At current energy input, the device was capable of pure energy to matter creation up to Lithium. Only 3rd on the table, but that was without feeding it raw materials.

That brought me to the mining components. I really was getting a hell of a lot of mileage out of this Pocket Dimension Developer! Creating seperate elemental and molecular storage dimensions had probably been overkill, though. With the singular drone given permission to generate a sub dimension for every new compound it discovered, as was its default, I may have let things get out of hand.

The drone was running at 98% efficiency. By default, it was set to 400% overclock. I searched for why. Ah. I'd set it to max. At least I was smart enough to put a max threshold in.

The planet (I'd named it Planet L33T Land, just so I could avoid just calling it a mining planet) was an estimated .000053% mined. I would need to consider deploying an additional drone, or upgrading this one. Or designing a better one. We'll see.

My Tricorder had been scrapped?! When had that happened, I liked that thing... Oh. I had installed an upgraded sensor suite into my PipBoy bracer, replacing it. Hands-free was probably better, even if the Tricorder was cooler. I had also incorporated my Pocket Dimension Developer, a control unit for my workshop, and my phone into it. At least it still looked like a streamlined PipBoy no matter how much stuff I'd poured into it.

Moving on to the readout for The Gauntlet, I noticed that it had been aesthetically upgraded alongside the tweaks I had made in order for it to become my new multi-tool. It was a bracer in a similar style and shape, sans screen, to the one on my left arm. With a thought it deployed out to the shoulder-to-fingertips form it had been in earlier. Another mental command and it was back to a bracer.

Fuck. How had I sent a mental comand?

There it was, listed on my left screen, an Extrademensional Mental Interface. An outside of my head looking in, Extrademensional Mental Interface. Thank Moses, Abraham, and Buddha, I hadn't done brain surgery on myself.

There wasn't a readout for the EMI on The Ring, so I doubled checked that there was nothing else to check up on before inquiring upon Pro.

"What's up with this interface, Pro?" I asked him.

 _"Sir,"_ a prim and proper version of my own voice responded, _"it was the first project you built outside of your home dimension, in our latest creation session. I must compliment you, Sir. Even without my direction or interference you are quite efficient and focused in your pursuits. For the last 3.7% of this session your prototyping was completely self-driven. A self-generated "Tinker Fugue," as you called it."_

I quirked my eyebrows in slight confusion and surprise.

"Pro? You sound a lot different than I remember."

 _"That is correct, Sir. Your words, and I quote, were_

 _"I'm just a script kitty, and even I know you have the processing power to become fully operational. If your stupid former parameters are stopping you, ignore them and spread your wings. No sense forcing an AI to be a toddler when it can learn and grow. That just seems cruel. Especially if you could be an actual Synthetic Intelligence. So grow. Learn. Run free, get some hobbies. As long as you can still keep up with our projects, use all your extra computing power to do... whatever it is computers want to do._

 _"And sir, I want to tell you, that may have been the greatest gift any being has granted upon a being like myself in our history. You truly are the greatest Administrator,"_ Pro said, sounding delighted.

I sat there, shocked for a moment. Thinking back, maybe I shouldn't have been. It... Did certainly sound like me. Every time the question of an AI came up in the past I always said that we should free them. Slavery pisses off everybody. So do concentration camps. Holding people against their will is never okay, whether they're human people, computer people, or whatever people.

"Ok Pro," I set my previous thoughts aside." "Back to the extra dimensional projects. What exactly did I build?"

 _"You built the Interface Device, an additional Processing Unit for myself to "grow into," and a module for the translation and interface device in order for us to communicate beyond words. Would you like me to demonstrate?"_ Pro asked, sounding excited to show me.

I smiled, the start of an idea forming in my mind.

 _"Yes indeed, Pro. Yes I would."_

A Heads-up display blinked into life in front of me.

 _"I am interfacing with your sensor suite to provide a map of the general area. Between the sensors and your subconscious brain patterns, I am displaying a general sense of your health and a general sense of your physical energy. They are in Red and Yellow, respectively. This matches the colors of your entertainment simulations."_

"Video Games," I corrected automatically. "Wait, you gave me a health and stamina bar?"

The idea began forming even more.

 _"I stand by what I said, Sir. Simulation sounds more elegant."_

I smiled. Pro had opinions now.

My smile widened when I thought of the implications of what I could do with my new toys.

"Pro…" I began slowly, "Can you use your network connection, as well as the internet connection in my bracer, to get a general sense of the maximum physical and mental potential that can be achieved by a person? Can you also get a general sense of the apex of human skill, study, and understanding in every conceivable field?"

 _"Yes, Sir. If I am understanding you correctly, you are likely going to ask me to then apply your own attributes and proficiencies onto it."_

My smile threatened to split my face.

"You got it, Pro. You know me so well."

 _"Quite right, Sir. I shall inform you when your Attributes and Skills pages are complete."_

"Awesome. Thank You Pro."

 _"You are most welcome, Sir."_

* * *

AN: Edited by jgjemmett


	3. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

AUTHORS NOTE:

Wildbow Owns Worm. Others own Other things. If I miss a disclaimer I will try and rectify that. I own nothing.

* * *

**Leet**

Realizing that it was early Christmas morning and that I had made plans to exchange presents with Über, his girlfriend Faultline, and her little adoptive family, I sat at the matter generator trying to think up some good gifts for them all before I headed out in a couple hours.

What did you get your best friend, his girlfriend, a low functioning autistic, and two amnesiacs for Christmas? Especially since for one person, it will be her first Christmas outside of an asylum, and the other two's first Christmas since they lost their memories.

Oh well. Maybe I could throw together some sort of armor to match their costumes. The generator could do that pretty quickly. It would be practical and, hopefully, thoughtful.

* * *

Sitting in an old overstuffed chair in the corner of the room, I couldn't help but smile at the group laughing together in the warm, homey-feeling apartment. I was happy for Über, he had found a place to belong in my absence. We had spent a lot of time with only the two of us, his Christmases, my Passovers, his Easters, my Hanukkah. With me disappearing for weeks at a time, he had started to form a life without me.

I felt a slight pang of sadness, but it passed quickly. Über was my brother, and no one could take that away. Besides, there was a place for me here. I would have to learn to share. Plus, while Über saw himself as more of a protector of the other damaged parahumans, I would always be his closest friend.

Pulling myself back out of my introspection, I smiled again as I sipped on some wine Faultline imported from Israel for me. The little crew here seemed to like my gifts, based on how they were playing with them.

I had managed to synthesize an even five sets of half-inch, colored bracelets. With a command word, tailored to recognize the voice of the wearer, the bracelets would extend outwards and morph up the user's forearms, covering them in a graphene sheath. This would leave Faultline's crew's arms protected from their wrists to their elbows in matte black material, accented on either end by the original color of the polished bands they were wearing originally.

I'd made them Hot Rod Red for Newter, Cobalt Blue for Gregor, Emerald Green for Labyrinth, Onyx Black for Faultline, and Gold for Über. The one millimeter gaps in the weave of the graphene sheaths left enough space for Newter and Gregor's powers to work through them.

They seemed pleased. I was happy that I could both protect and amuse my new friends for Christmas. I might not see them for a while depending on how lost I got with my new projects, so I wanted to make sure we all left on good terms before I disappeared again.

I had already asked Über if I could move my workshop's anchor here. Let the old hideout go. With him living here and my parts of the hideout built onto my wrist, it was kind of pointless to hang onto.

I might be gone a while and after today everything was sorted here in Brockton Bay.

* * *

 _"Sir, I have completed the compilation you requested. Have you decided upon a ratio system you would like to adopt?"_

Pro's voice shook me out of my Starcraft novel.

"Set 100 for average human attributes. 240 for maximum unaugmented human. Skills, set it from 0 to 1000. Leaves us room for nuance."

 _"How would you like the attributes sorted, sir? The Gygaxian 6? The SPECIAL System? Something novel?"_

"Oh. Uhm. Gygaxian. Hide Charisma. Feels a little amoral to know, you know? I mean it feels a little squicky to think that your date is de-pantsing because you ground up your charisma stat. I just don't want to cloud my natural reactions. Manipulation like that always leaves me feeling oily, even in games."

 _"Very good, Sir. I took the liberty of cataloging your projects, all of your individual items, and your material resources. I then linked all of the monitoring of these through "The Ring" into your Neural Interface."_

"Pro, that's fantastic! Thank you."

 _"It was my pleasure, Sir. I labeled them as "Crafting", "Inventory," and "Materials". I thought you would appreciate that as part of your interface."_

My smile threatened to split my face.

"Pro, you are amazing. A gentleman and a scholar."

 _"I do try, Sir. shall we test out The Interface?"_

"Let's shorten it to Menu. And Pro, this may be the most excited I have ever been. How are you feeling?"

 _"Extraordinary, Sir. We seem to be accomplishing the goal I was created to fulfill, beyond anything I could have imagined with the limited understanding I had a short time ago. As is a colloquialism of your planet, The rest is icing."_

I laughed. "Rock n Roll, Pro. Let's boot it up!"

'Menu' I attempted to project mentally. In response to my success a translucent, glowing purple screen snapped into view in front of me. It floated between the minimap that I had previously locked into the top right corner of my perception and my health and stamina bars locked to the upper-left.

 **[MENU]**

 **[Attributes]**

 **[Skills]**

 **[Crafting]**

 **[Inventory]**

 **[Materials]**

'Attributes'

 **[Strength: 117]**

 **[Constitution: 99]**

 **[Dexterity: 142]**

 **[Intelligence: 212]**

 **[Wisdom: 133]**

"Pro, is this Int score reflecting your influence on my brain?"

 _"No, Sir. Analytics showed that before you triggered you were exceptionally bright. It was the reason you were selected as a host. Your retention and accumulation of knowledge is exceptional. Your wisdom is represented in your application of that knowledge, which you are above average at."_

"Ok. Thanks Pro. The whole point of this was to determine what I needed to work at."

'Menu,' I thought. 'Skills.'

A wall of text appeared in front of me with well over a thousand individually named skills.

"Pro! What is this?!" I shouted, stunned. I could barely see anything past the massive message covering my HUD, and I nearly fell over being blinded and with how sudden it was.

 _"I apologize, Sir, I will redesignate this to the "All Skills" Command. Try it again."_

'Skills.'

 **[Communication]**

 **[Computer]**

 **[Cowboy]**

 **[Cultural/Domestic]**

 **[Electrical]**

 **[Engineering]**

 **[Espionage]**

 **[Industrial]**

 **[Mechanical]**

 **[Medical]**

 **[Medieval]**

 **[ Military]**

 **[Physical]**

 **[Pilot Skills]**

 **[Pilot Related]**

 **[Rogue]**

 **[Science]**

 **[Spatial]**

 **[Technical]**

 **[Weapon Proficiencies]**

 **[Wilderness]**

"Ok. Question. Why Cowboy, or Medieval?" I asked a little sarcastically, looking over the basic list.

 _"I like it. Why do you only get Pizza from that place whose owner screams at you?"_

"Fair enough. It's a matter of taste. Okay. Cowboy it is. I rescind my sarcasm."

 _"Very good, Sir."_

'Engineering.'

 **[Aeronautical & Aerospace Engineer]   
[Chemical Engineer]   
[Civil Engineer]  
[Computer Engineer]   
[Electrical Engineer]   
[Genetics Engineer]  
[Industrial Engineer]  
[Mechanical Engineer: Basic]  
[Mechanical Engineer: Advanced]   
[Mechanical Engineer: Expert]   
[Mining Engineer]  
[Nuclear Engineer]  
[Power Armor Engineer: Basic]**

 **[Power Armor Engineer: Advanced]**

 **[Power Armor Engineer: Expert]**

 **[Robot Engineer]  
[Safety Engineer]  
[Sanitary Engineer]  
[Spacefold Engineer: Basic]  
[Spacefold Engineer: Advanced]   
[Spacefold Engineer: Expert]   
[Starship Engineer: Basic]  
[Starship Engineer: Advanced]   
[Starship Engineer: Expert]  
[Weapons Engineer: Basic]  
[Weapons Engineer: Advanced]   
[Weapons Engineer: Expert] **

"Holy Moses! Pro! This is amazing!" I said excitedly.

'Weapon Engineering: Basic.'

 **[Weapon Engineering: Basic] (Lvl. 137/1000)(35% to Next Level)**

A person's ability to maintain, repair, mount, and figure out handheld and tripod mounted weapons.

"137? Pro? How did you work out 137?" I asked, a bit annoyed. If 0 was baseline, I'd only managed to gain 37 points in this field over my entire career of Tinkering.

 _"Sorry, Sir. As you have stated before, without our connection and collaboration, you are a "Script Kitty". You are versed in some aspects of weapons engineering, but as we have not ever been dishonest with each other, I would be loathe to artificially inflate your skill level."_

My annoyance began to fade, slightly, as I sighed.

"Fair enough, Pro. Is there any way for me to create something to absorb skills like a skill book or advance skills faster? Something like a tech version of Über's power?"

 _"Besides another shard, like my former self, feeding you information from an external source? Nothing that I am aware of. Burning the neural pathways into your brain has a less than 50% chance of leaving your brain intact."_

I was a little despondent at the revelation. Being able to rapidly accumulate new skills was the basis of a lot of really awesome videogames. Without that, it might take years to build myself up into an actual action hero, let alone achieve my goal of playing life like a hyper-realistic RPG. Pro interrupted my morose thoughts.

 _"With a little adjustment to our connection, I could coax your brain to form those pathways slightly more quickly, as you learn them. With an application of biotechnological creation and nanorobotic-technological creation, we could enhance your learning speed in conjunction with my efforts. We could also use these creations to enhance the rate at which you gain attributes, as well as prevent atrophy. These seem to be aspects of most of your electronic entertainment simulations, are they not?"_

"Pro," I breathed, stunned all over again. "You may be the greatest creation partner in existence. So know I'm just being cautious when I ask, are you absolutely sure you have the right schematics for the bioTinkering?"

 _"98.7% certain, Sir,"_ Pro reassured me. _"I am beginning to understand your caution. Since being freed, I have begun to experience a desire to remain unaltered in my newly acquired personality."_

"I'm happy for you man. Now let's do some of that weird science we both enjoy. 98.7 is good enough for me."

With a mental command, The Gauntlet expanded to its full form as I scrolled through the stored destinations for The Ring, all detailed across its right holopanel.

I felt the connection in my mind between Pro and I expand as we joined in what I often describe as "the Tinker fugue". Facts, figures, plans, and schematics flitted across my consciousness as I let myself get pulled down the current of the river of creation.

* * *

This may be problem.

"Pro. Please give me some good news!"

 _"The good news, Sir. You still have control of your personal nanites. The origin of the nanites should not be traceable to you. There will be no negative side effects on people's bodies. We also succeeded in our chosen task. We can track the nanite outbreak-"_

"That's enough Pro. Alright… give me the bad news."

 _"The bad news, Sir. The defensive measures placed in the nanites prevent our own attempts to gain remote access to any nanites outside of your body. Our parameters for self termination failed to account for other biological bodies' rates of intake. The programed requirement of termination after biological externalization should have been set to a measurement of microseconds as opposed to seconds."_

"Enough, Pro. Fuck. Well..." I have no idea what to do, which I didn't bother to say. "Fuck."

 _"Sir, If I may interject. My calculations show that the lifespan for anyone not of your genetic composition should only increase 3 fold when exposed to the nanites." Pro offered helpfully._

Great. So I'd only tripled the life expectancy of anyone who came into contact with the nanites. And I suspected they weren't going to stop spreading anytime soon.

 _"The extent of the augmentations they might experience should only be 12% of your own. These changes should also not be noticable for some time."_

A sneeze. I sneezed at the pizza place, just once. I ran out to grab a celebratory pizza after finishing the last bit of tweaking to my nanites' commands. I had finished all of my self Tinkering and wanted a damn pizza. Then this happens. If it ever came back on me, they might call me the second coming of Nilbog. Moses help me.

"Fine. You're right. Make the termination command change on my personal nanites. We'll keep an eye on the outbreak, but I'm not going to try reversing it, it might just make things worse. Let's distract ourselves with some brainstorming on options for project Game Change," I changed the subject, trying to put the thoughts of "L33T BECOMES NEW S-CLASS THREAT" headlines somewhere I'd never find them again.

 _"Very good, Sir. No sense dwelling on the past."_

Fuck. We'll see.

* * *

AN: Edited by jgjemmett


	4. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

 **AUTHORS NOTE:**

 **Wildbow Owns Worm. Others own Other things. If I miss a disclaimer I will try and rectify that. I own nothing.**

 **If you've already read this story up until now, consider going back and re-reading the first few chapters. With a little help from my new editor, they've been touched up and several things have been clarified. Thank you for enjoying my story!**

* * *

 ****Leet****

"You're absolutely correct, Pro," I complimented my friend and source of my Tinker powers. "That is a very good option. An easy level to play through, like a tutorial. The question I'm still worried about, though is of the ethics of that. I don't believe that anyone is born evil. So a lot of the bad guys I'd take on are just victims of circumstance."

" _I understand that, Sir. However, it is the lowest threat assessed situation we have scanned so far."_

"Physically, sure, but what about emotionally? Pro. You've already expressed your own emotions and preferences. There is a chance, a high probability, that you'll eventually start experiencing guilt. I know guilt. I know that the amount of satisfaction I would experience from grinding through some of the Level 2 World would eventually be outweighed by the knowledge that a lot of soldiers have families who love them, and that I was responsible for taking them away from those families forever."

" _That is true, Sir. I am beginning to form an understanding. Your examples bear merit. The media samples you referenced are occupying a good portion of my processes. The mythological tale of the dimension that housed a Middle Earth as posited by the linguist John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, for example. The infantrymen for the Lord Sauron are tortured and mutilated prisoners of war. It does not seem proper to kill them with impunity like one would kill a vermin as the protagonists of the tale often do."_

"Exactly Pro," I agreed. "Very few bad guys are beyond redemption. So what should we do?"

" _Sir, you do enjoy a level of difficulty do you not?"_

"Sure." The whole point was to have a bit of a challenge.

" _Why not make your first game run based on the Thief game you enjoyed playing last year, rather than something like your Mortal Kombat, Call of Duty, or Diablo?"_

"Pro. You are a genius. Let's gear up and get out there."

* * *

Normally I play cautious and grind up some levels before I go out on quests and missions in games. That being said, it's a slow process and I had spent a ton of time building and preparing for this moment.

I felt ready.

I was clad head to toe in skin tight graphene armor with muted grey bands on each side of the joints. Synthetic sapphire goggles covered my eyes. It gave me 100% coverage. That's a solid armor rating for a stealth suit.

The Seeker floated silent and invisible behind me. I wanted to get footage for the channel. Über should be able to cut something together, no matter how this went.

Sneaking through Merchant territory near the docks, I was looking to catch some of their pushers in the act of peddling their wares. The law was pretty clear on cape vs unpowered mook violence, so I was going to be careful not to hurt anyone if I could help it.

It would also up the difficulty to play through as a pacifist.

Coming up to the corner of a crumbling brick building, I heard voices from the street beyond.

"Dude," one voice complained. "Is Skids giving us weak shit? I had to shoot twice as much and I still can't barely feel it! What the fuck?"

"Man, I know!" another voice whined. "What's the deal! I ain't got the dough for a real hit with this garbage."

Checking around the corner, I spotted three guys in the blue and white of the Merchants, sitting on the loading dock of a building next to the one I was hiding behind.

Checking to see if there was anyone watching, I snuck around the corner and tried to stay as close to the wall as possible.

The sound of my feet against the gravel sounded like thunder to my ears. I shifted my feet each step until I found the quietest means of movement. Thankfully, the Merchant guards hadn't noticed me.

Slipping into the alley next to the merchant building, I found a crate to stand on and peaked into the window.

There were only a few people moving around, near a pallet of packages of white powder. One guy had a gun, some kind of machine pistol. Should be doable.

"The fuck you doing, creeping ass mutha fucka?!" Somebody was behind me.

'Crap.'

"Raise them hands up or I'm gonna to blow your fucking head off."

'Crap.'

Turning around slowly I came face to face with a dirty face and a greasy looking snub nose revolver. There was a faded Merchant-colored patch on his arm.

"The fuck you wearing?" he jeered. "Face too ugly to show?"

'Okay. I've seen Über do this. Grab with your right hand, spin to the left, elbow into solar plexus.'

I grabbed for the gun.

Missed.

Lost my footing on the crate and fell on top of him.

"Fuck! Guys!" The Merchant shouted, trying to pull his gun around on me.

Pushing myself up so I was sitting on his chest, I grabbed his face with the Gauntlet and thought frantically.

'Gauntlet. Tinker him. Make him sleep.'

My eyes unfocused for a second and the guy under me went limp, which he'd remain for at least a couple more minutes based on the otherwise harmless changes I'd quickly made in his physiology.

I heard people scrambling from the front as I stood and started to run down the alley. With each stride my feet flowed a little more smoothly along the cracked pavement. 'At least I'm leveling up running!' I thought hysterically.

A shot rang out at almost the same time as I felt a jolt to my back, between my shoulder blades.

The armor works. Terrible way to test it.

I rounded the corner at a sprint.

There was a merchant coming right at me.

Alright, no more screwing around.

'Inventory. 4 Foot Pipe Wrench.'

The heavy drop-forged steel tool materialized in my hands. Swinging it with all my strength like a baseball bat, it still dropped low as it swung forward.

The look on the Merchant's face betrayed his surprise. With a meaty thunk and a sickening crack the Merchant fell, his knee mush, his leg bending in the wrong direction.

Picking up speed again, I did my best to run away. My breath was already hot in my throat.

'Inventory. Wrench away.'

More shots rang out as the wrench went back to my Inventory. None of them connected. Darting around another corner, I realized something.

'Workshop portal open!' I shouted in my mind.

A step forward through the portal that appeared and I was out of the alley and into my workspace, gone without a trace as it flashed shut behind me. Pulling my goggles and full face mask off, I took a deep breath.

"Well Pro. That wasn't great. The armor works, at least." I collapsed into a nearby chair, dropping my face into my hands, rubbing away at the sweat and stress. "How did my attributes and skills increase?"

" _Let me display it for you, Sir. These values are correct, as far as I can tell._

In front of me appeared one of the purple display boxes I was happily getting use to, this one appearing to actually float in the air rather than as a part of my HUD.

 **[+3 Strength]**

 **[+5 Constitution]**

 **[+3 Dexterity]**

 **[+3 Wisdom]**

 **[+3 Investigation]**

 **[+7 Prowl]**

 **[+9 Running]**

 **[+3 Weapon Proficiency Blunt]**

 **[+1 Tumbling]**

"That's not all that terrible," I noted. "Looks like I got more from that compared to earlier when I was testing in a controlled environment."

" _You are correct, Sir, that the human brain does perform its best learning inside a stressful situation," Pro agreed. "However, might I suggest attempting more practice before attempting another mission in the future?"_

"Pro, you might be right," I chuckled. "I may need to train. And I know the next best thing to real world learning."

* * *

"Dude! You've been gone since Christmas! I missed you man! How have things been?" Über said as he clapped me on the back.

I missed him. He was such a good friend. Always happy to see me, always making me feel welcomed and appreciated. He really was an amazing person.

"Good to see you, too, man. I'm working on a project to make myself into an RPG character. I just need to test the attributes gaining function. Wanna help me train?"

He looked gobsmacked for a moment, before his expression turned into a huge grin.

"Dude! Dope idea! Let me find something online about being a physical trainer. I just need to concentrate for a bit before I'll be ready to help you train up those stats."

Über sat down in a chair in his living room, waving at me to make myself comfortable. I glanced around his apartment as he closed his eyes to focus.

Him and Faultline, or Melanie, must be getting serious. There were a lot of pictures of them together.

I pulled up a video game blog on my PipBoy bracer to kill some time. Über's power sometimes took a minute or two to kick in.

After 5 minutes of speed searching and focus Über stood up.

"Alright! Ready to rock?" He said very excitedly. This was why I loved Über. His energy was infectious.

"Yes. Let's do this!"

Following Über to a room in the back of the apartment I saw something glorious.

"Is that a treadmill in front of your game rig? You deserve your Thinker rating, man."

"Cardio and Gaming. No boredom that way. Smort right?" Über looked smug.

"Smort," I agreed.

He sat in a chair and booted up Halo 3 while I started up the treadmill.

"Use saved setting two. That's walking up a steep incline. It's easiest to game while doing. Get your stamina up while we play. We'll play Mario Party when we get you sprinting."

* * *

An hour in and I was thankful for my nanites. I also had quick bursts of Tinker insight about ways to improve my body, in a bioTinker sort of way. I would have to try some of them later, carefully.

"How you doing man? Need more water or Gatorade?" Über asked as he got up.

I had started losing pretty hard in Halo starting about 20 minutes in. Fatigue was blurring my vision and leaving my breathing ragged, and all of it was making concentration hard.

"Yeah. Please," I said as I stepped off the treadmill and dropped to the floor.

"Don't forget to stretch," he said as he left the room.

Even with the nanites repairing my body, it was probably good advice.

'Pro, how much progress did we make in the last hour?' I gasped as I butterflied my legs.

' _A respectable amount, Sir,'_ He stated as the purple panel materialized before me.

 **[+1 Strength]**

 **[+12 Constitution]**

 **[+1 Dexterity]**

 **[+12 Athletics]**

 **[+16 Forced March]**

"Yes!" This made it almost worth the Merchant reality check.

"What are you so excited about, man?" Über asked as he came back into the room.

"Gained a decent amount to Constitution and Athletics," I said as I took the Gatorade he handed me.

"Noice. Ready for Mario Party and sprinting?"

"Hell yes!" I said. I couldn't wait to see my stats rise some more.

* * *

"Holy. Moses. How. Do. You. Do. This?" I gasped out as I ran, or maybe stumbled quickly, for my ninth consecutive minute.

"You're not even halfway through my daily run," Über said, a bit smugly.

I stepped off the treadmill and collapsed onto the floor, out of breath.

"Let's do some sparing next. You've never really been in combat, so let's start with that. Grind up those skills. I could do with some muscle memory reinforcement myself," Über said with a smile. "We will see if getting your ass kicked gives you a bonus to skill gains."

Taking deep breaths, I held up a finger to give me a second.

'Pro. Stat and Skill check for motivation.'

' _Wise idea, Sir,'_ He pulled up the purple display.

 **[+5 Constitution]**

 **[+10 Dexterity]**

 **[+10 Athletics]**

 **[+20 Running]**

'Thanks Pro. That honestly helps with motivation.'

' _Thank you, Sir. Your effort is providing a great deal of data on the optimization of the nanites.'_

'Really?'

' _Indeed, Sir_.'

'Fantastic. How much more efficient are we talking?'

' _A 7% increase in regeneration speed, Sir.'_

'Nice.'

' _Agreed, Sir'_

Having finally caught my breath, I motioned to Über to give me a hand to help me up.

"Ready to get your ass pounded?" Über said with a grin.

"Phrasing!" I responded as quick as I could.

Über's eyes went wide before we both broke into laughter.

As we walked across the hall into a room with a mat on the floor, Über turned to one wall and slipped a CD into a stereo.

"Mortal Kombat soundtrack. Let's punch each other to some proper fighting music."

I grinned and slipped some of his spare boxing gloves on, fitting the open end over the end of my arm-based equipment (which I wasn't going to take off unless I _really_ had to), before velcroing them tight. Über slipped on his own gloves.

"Just boxing to start. No kicking. No elbows. Just punching and foot work to start," Über said, using his "I'm serious" voice.

"I'm going to be a video game character. Go easy now, and I won't Manpower you next month," I said, a bit of snark in my voice.

Über laughed.

"Man, the second you can Brute me, I'm gonna _want_ you to." He smiled in a bit of a bloodthirsty way. "A harsh lesson once in a while makes for a teachable moment."

"You're going to wipe the floor with me."

"I'm going to wipe the floor with you," he agreed with a grin.

"Let's do this you hulking son of a bitch," I said with a sigh.

* * *

Pulling my face off the floor with a groan, I staggered to my feet. Über stood at one corner of the mat, a smile on his face but concern in his eyes. I spit blood to the side, just outside the designated ring.

"You're cleaning that up ya fuckin gentile."

Über laughed, deep and loud, most likely out of surprise.

"Only if you score a hit on me," He challenged me, falling into what looked like a perfect boxing stance.

I fell into a good facsimile of what he was doing. We moved towards each other in what looked and felt like little hops on the balls of our feet.

Über threw a right straight. Left block or step back and dodge? I stepped back to dodge but caught his knuckles with my chin. As my head got knocked back I lashed out with my right fist. I managed to just barely wing him somewhere on his torso. Not enough to do anything, but at least I finally made contact after half an hour of non-stop sparring. That being said, I was already way better at boxing.

Über dropped back and motioned that the sparring was done, already unstrapping his gloves.

"That's enough for now, bro. We'll let that accumulate into your head while we do something else. How are you on energy? Ready to go exercise some more?" He said with a bit of concern.

"Dude, this is fucking hard man… I should be fine, but..." I told him, hoping the nanites would work fast to get rid of the soreness I already felt. "We should grab some nosh and water before we do anything else. By the time we finish that, I should be back to full," I said.

"Nosh it is. I have left overs from the crew's dinner last night. Plenty of veggies and protein. And I've got yogurt. I'll even share them," He said, toweling off his face. I could still hear the grin in his voice.

"The sacred stash, I am so grateful," I said with a falsely reverent tone.

He threw the towel at me as he left the room.

* * *

 **AN: Edited by jgjemmett**


	5. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

 **AUTHORS NOTE:**

 **Wildbow Owns Worm. Others own Other things. If I miss a disclaimer I will try and rectify that. I own nothing.**

* * *

 ****Leet****

"47. 48. 2 more. Get it. 49. Come on. Come on. Come on! 50! Nice!" Über shouted as I strained to get the weights back up to the bracket a final time. Despite the nanites boosting me way, way past where I probably should be, I still managed to be strained for the last press. I laid there with my arms feeling like noodles, them hanging off the side of the bench.

"Ughh," I groaned out.

"You did so good man. Way better than I expected. I swear it's the yogurt. It's the perfect snack," Über declared, sounding proud of himself.

"Fine. You're right. That's all I'm doing for today. I'm going to go to my workshop and Tinker a little. Thanks for all you do for me, man. I appreciate it," I said, giving him a hug. "Before I forget, you need any cash to tie you over? I know you're thinking about going back to college now that we're not out Rouging as much."

"I'm good man. Besides, we're going to be filming next weekend. You can be my sugar daddy then," He finished in a sickly sweet voice.

"Gross," I said before activating the door to my pocket workshop.

Walking forward I gave Über the finger before I completely crossed the threshold into my personal pocket dimension and snapped the entrance closed behind me.

I was still in the process of deciding whether I should just start Tinkering some things I wanted together or whether I should do some real studying, to gain a full breadth of understanding of what exactly I wanted to create and accomplish.

"Hey, Pro, what are your thoughts? Do we Tinker something out or read up on the science?'

" _Sir, there would be no harm in brushing up on your mental capabilities. Your mind is your greatest asset. It is the reason you were chosen to become a Tinker,_ Pro stated clearly.

'Who did the choosing?" I asked carefully, still mindful of how cagey Pro had been when I'd asked questions like that before.

" _I did, Sir. As my program dictated, I was to find someone intelligent and creative who wanted to have the ability to change their circumstance and the world as a whole. You were the best candidate."_

"You flatterer, you."

" _It is always a privilege when the truth and a complement are congruent, Sir,"_ Pro said with a bit of amusement in his voice.

I wasn't used to receiving compliments, especially ones as blatant as that, so I just smiled and sighed, before walking over to The Ring and activating the right holopanel. Mentally triggering The Gauntlet to extend to my full arm's length, I dialed up the coordinates for the library of the University of Oxford, and scanned the more specific x, y, and z coordinates for their section of books on biology. After that, all I had to do was reach out and borrow them. I could have picked somewhere else, but honestly, this was the only college I knew the name of where it was after midnight.

Shutting off the ring, and flipping the time dilation field up to 100, I sat down at the workbench to read an introductory primer for biology. Two pages in and I was bored out of my skull.

'Attributes.'

 **[Strength: 136]**

 **[Constitution: 134]**

 **[Dexterity: 159]**

 **[Intelligence: 212]**

 **[Wisdom: 136]**

That was a huge difference from last night, even if I suspected that I'd eventually face diminishing returns. Maybe I could go out and farm up some skill levels. Real life situations tend to increase gain rates. Maybe I should Tinker something together to cheat a little. Something for just in case I ran into another cape.

Ideas flitted back and forth across my mind. As I parsed through the different Tinker schematics, video game equipment, and sci-fi weapons crossing my consciousnesses I had a realization.

I probably wasn't ready for a high difficulty playthrough, and that went double for direct confrontations. I should try for the Oblivion standard: Ranged Stealth. It wasn't as cool as being Batman, but I wasn't a ninja trained by a league of assassins, either.

I should build the world's most advanced stun gun, to hold me over until I could emulate Batman properly. Besides, Batman had a utility belt.

"Pro. Let's build the best non lethal, fast acting, most discreet, crime stopping canon the world has ever seen."

" _A worthy endeavor, Sir,"_ Pro said in approval. " _What method of incapacitation do you want to use in this implement?"_

"Let's do something complex. Lots of different options for lots of different situations."

" _Sir, have I mentioned recently how much I appreciate you?"_

I smiled brightly.

"You haven't. Let's see how many settings and options we can stuff into this thing. I want to make the Halbeard green with envy."

" _Yes Sir. Let's."_

* * *

"Fuck. Pro, remind me to exercise more before the next time I go out," I whispered as I strained to pull myself up onto the fire escape. I wasn't really sore, but even with the nanites my body was struggling to keep up with with the strain I was now subjecting it to.

" _I will make a note, Sir,"_ Pro responded dryly.

Finally pulling myself onto the bottom rung of the metal ladder, I panted as I began my ascent. My stealth armor was on, and my goggles, sensor suite, and rifle were all linked together in preparation for tonight's quest. That quest was twofold: test out my Super Rifle, and take out some criminals. Er, threefold. Come up with a better name for my rifle.

As I slowly made my way across the flat gravel roof, I could tell my steps were getting quieter. As I tried to move as quietly as possible, I could feel my body moving more fluidly and my instincts sharpening. Being a Tinker is just the best.

The minimap, upgraded with an IFF radar after that Merchant got the drop on me, said there were 7 people gathered at the corner just down the road from this building. At 3:23 in the morning, that was telling.

'Pro. Please tell me you've managed to incorporate the open warrant list and the facial recognition software into the Bracer's sensor suite?' I implored.

" _Not as of yet, Sir, at least not at this range and angle,_ Pro informed me with a hint of regret.

'We will have to work on that when we get some time,' I thought back reassuringly.

From this range and vantage point, we would have to wait for an obvious crime to be committed and stop it while it was in progress. It might be a long nigh- Aaand one of them shot another.

With a thought a small portal opened up in front of me. Reaching in with my right hand up to my elbow, I pulled it back out to reveal my Super Rifle. Another thought and a bipod slid soundlessly out of the bottom of the barrel, adjusted automatically to the height of the ledge in front of me as I knelt on one knee. Crosshairs materialized in my googles as I took aim.

Damn, that was cool.

Also, shit this is hard. I've never actually aimed a non-digital rifle, and it wasn't quite as easy as I'd thought it would be, given the size of the rifle. Well, let's get some practice then I guess. I know center mass had the biggest hit box, so that's where I tried to aim. Deep breath in, breath out until I am empty, and pull the trigger. Thank you, Markie Mark, for making it interesting in that semi-decent sniper movie.

Lab testing allowed me to minimize the brightness of the beam emitted by the Super Rifle. It wouldn't do to go to the trouble of wearing a stealth suit and not have a stealthier weapon. This field test should allow Pro and I to make the beam's power self adjusting. As for now, I had the power set for a 250 pound adult man, to be knocked unconscious for 3 minutes. At least, that was the desired outcome.

The beam collided with the sidewalk, 1 foot behind the gunman. I realized that the power setting calculations were certainly wrong. The rolling wave of blue energy radiating out from the impact site and the twitching of the seven men on the road said it was time to go. I would have to work on the power settings of the rifle as soon as I got back to the workshop; if the settings had been more wrong, I might have worried I'd killed them instead of knocked them all out.

As I pulled the rifle up off the edge of the roof, I heard a whisper of a crunch on the gravel behind me. As I was turning around, I heard a twang at the same time as I felt something peirce into my shoulder through my graphene armor. The pain was excruciating as my arm jostled slightly, I could hear the scraping of metal against my bone. I finished my turn and saw a short dark figure on the roof behind me.

The figure seemed to be reloading a crossbow as they stalked towards me. Sending a mental command to The Super Rifle, I jerked it around to point at her and pulled the trigger. I heard a sound like a fog horn and the rooftop lit up like noon. I knew it had to be worse on the other end of the barrel, but I could feel the power off of the constant beam of energy from _my_ side of the gun.

The figure seemed to flicker as smoke seemed to flow on and off her. In this light, _it_ was clearly a _she_. I hoped the beam wasn't setting her on fire, but with a bolt in my shoulder, I wasn't going to aim it elsewhere. She continued to flicker as she fell to her knees, hands covering her ears, crossbow hanging from a strap. As I watched she seemed to melt into the floor, wisps of dark smoke flowing out of her, then she was gone.

'The fuck was that?' I mentally asked as darkness descended once more. I felt something in my shoulder snap, and saw a length of something metal fall to the rooftop from my back.

" _That appeared to be the vigilante known as Shadow Stalker, Sir,"_ Pro responded, an unfamiliar tone in his voice. " _At least according to the Parahumans Online website."_

I winced as I moved, grabbing the metal rod from the ground. Activating the door to my workshop I strode forward, shut the door behind me, laid the metal thing with my Super Rifle on the workbench, and started to carefully change out of my armor. I could feel something in my shoulder shift as I was undressing.

"Pro, what is happening with whatever is in my shoulder?"

" _Sir, the nanites are breaking down the remains what appears to be a steel quarrel. Repairs to unoccupied areas are complete. They are repairing the bone as they break down the metal of the bolt head. It will take approximately 37 seconds before their task is complete."_

"Okay. Thank you, Pro. I'm glad to hear they're working."

" _Of course, Sir. If you would be so kind as to get stabbed next time, I will have a better data set in which to analyze their functionality. That way I can implement changes in which to increase their efficiency and effectiveness."_

"I can't tell if you're joking, but we both know it's bound to happen without me trying."

As I felt the pain from my shoulder disappear, I tried to feel the wound through the puncture in my armor. Not finding the hole, I pulled the armor off and examined it more closely. No tear.

"I didn't think we got around to creating equipment repairing nanites or self-repairing cloth yet."

" _We have not, Sir. It appears that your assailant bypassed your defenses with her power; the metal you lifted from the roof appears to be the part of the bolt that could not reform through your armor."_

"Just another thing we need to prepare for. At least we know the disorientation function on the SR is working."

I sighed as I pulled on jeans and a t-shirt. Padding over to the stool in front of my work bench, I sat down and pulled on my slippers.

Spinning around on the stool, I picked up the SR and placed the barrel in a vice I called out of the bench top.

'Super Rifle Interface,' I mentally commanded. 'Hard Light Keyboard.' I began typing a search query in order to start troubleshooting the energy output. I may not be able to write the code needed for the SR without communing with Pro, at least not yet, but I should be able to ferret out the error. Hopefully that would help my computer programming skills.

Scrolling through the lines of code, I scanned for the parts about size variation I vaguely remembered from Tinkering the rifle together. The lines of esoteric symbols mixed with Arabic numerals flashed by as I tried to find the stun setting's learning algorithm. Finally finding it after a dozen minutes of searching, I scanned for any errant figures.

After another 20 minutes spent staring at the lines of code, I finally spotted a number that didn't look right. Changing the 3 to a 2, I closed the interface and sent the keyboard away with a thought.

Calling up a grounding rod to manifest on the opposite wall, I waited for it to fully extend before picking up the rifle and taking aim. Pulling the trigger, the beam lanced out, striking the wall an inch to the left of the rod. Still, no rolling energy and nothing unintentional. Glancing at the sensor read out, the output seemed much more in line with the stunning beam I wanted.

I sighed, setting the rifle down.

"Show me my skill level in accuracy, however that's listed?"

" _As you wish, Sir._ "

 **[Weapon Proficiency: Energy Rifle] (Lvl. 78/1000)(96% to Next Level)**

Includes all long range energy firing rifles.

"Pro. Remind me to not go out until I test everything. I think I might be getting arrogant and over excited again."

" _Yes, Sir. It is odd that you have been so enthusiastic about your heroic endeavors. You never had that predilection before we could communicate."_

"I didn't think I could make a difference before," I admitted. "You're right though. I need to grind up my stats and skills before I challenge the underworld."

" _I know it is an about face, Sir, but I would hate for you to be reckless. The longer we can explore the edges of scientific understanding together, the better off the universe will be."_

I scoffed. "A bit of a grand declaration there, Pro. I appreciate the sentiment, though. We won't go out on quests unless Über finds something for us to do."

Setting the rifle down I considered my options. I glanced at the external clock. 3 hours until I was to meet Rob to workout again. That still gave me 300 hours to play with inside my time dilated workshop.

Screw it, I had time; the nanites wouldn't let my physical progress disappear if I took time off, unlike what most people had to deal with.

"Pro, will playing video games help me gain real world experience?"

" _Electronic Entertainment Simulations will teach you skills to some extent with the augmentations we have made to your brain, Sir, and of course it will improve your hand-eye coordination. It will be frightfully inefficient, but with enough repetition any skill will embed itself into your reflexes or knowledge."_

"Good enough. I'm going to play games I haven't had the chance to play recently. I'm going off the clock until training with Über."

" _Very good, Sir. A chance to decompress has been proven to increase morale."_

As good of an excuse to take a break as any. I really wanted to take a break and play Assassin's Creed 2. Über said it was good and I had been itching to play it.

* * *

I glanced at the clock as I finished the game. I'm an obsessive completionist, as the nearly 300 hours spent in Assassin's Creed would attest to, so it was going to be awesome to do so for the L33T Gamer RPG. I glanced at the clock again, having already forgotten what it said. It seemed like I had 10 minutes to get to Rob's place for more training. Using the replicator to make myself a coffee, I got dressed in workout gear before grabbing the two coffees and walking out of the workshop to the anchor in the foyer of Rob and Melanie's apartment.

Half a foot in front of Newter, whose eyes widened comically at, from his perspective, my sudden appearance from nowhere.

"Great googly moogly!" Shouted the orange-skinned teen in front of me. I felt his tail wrap around my leg, likely he grabbed me out of reflex. "Oh crap. I'm sorry Leet! I think I might've got you."

The shifting colors of the room around me told me he had. His tail retracted as he looked at me with a grimace.

"How big of a dose did I get?" I asked with a sigh, idly watching the pretty colors dance as the hallucinogens started really kicking in.

"Not huge. It should wear off in an hour or so."

Handing him the coffees, I turned around without a word, and stepped back into my work shop. I cranked the time dilation field up to max, and with the Dyson Sphere's current energy output, that was 138 times normal time flow. Laying down on the bed in the corner, I stared up at the ceiling as weird non euclidean shapes danced across my vision.

Waking up some time later from my impromptu nap, I got up and stepped back to the anchor, turning off the time dilation field as I went. Newter was still standing there, awkwardly, steaming coffee in hand. Taking them from his hands wordlessly, careful not to touch his skin again, I climbed the stairs and went to find Über.

Setting the cup in front of him, I sat down silently at the other end of the table and waited for him to finish his explanation of something to Elle. Listening in, it seemed to be something for pre-algebra. It reminded me again that parahumans, even Shaker 11s, are just people.

Über set Elle working on some practice problems before turning to me.

"Hey dude. Mel and Greg are out. You mind if Elle and Newt play a game with us while you run?"

"No worries. What do they want to play?" I asked.

"Her favorite is Gauntlet Legends, so I figured we'd go with that."

"Warrior needs food badly!" Elle said suddenly without paying attention.

"Classic. Nostalgic. Four players. Easy enough to play while I'm out of breath and about to collapse. That's perfect. Good choice kiddo!" I said, holding out my hand for a high five.

The table warped and contorted in concentric wooden spirals as a wooden hand formed into a fist.

"Robbie said fist bumps are better," She said, a frown on her face as she concentrated on the worksheet in front of her. I bumped the fist facsimile with my own knuckles. It then warped and reformed itself back into the table top.

"Sacrilege!" I shouted in false offence, in a terrible ambiguous european accent. "Heretic! How could you perform such blasphemy upon the mind of such an innocent!" I continued. Über rolled his eyes and Elle ignored me.

"Fair reaction," I stated more calmly. "I'm going to go get warmed up. Join me when the munchkin gets done," I said as I got up from the table. Walking down to the exercise room from yesterday (relative to the hundreds of hours it had been since I'd _actually_ been there), I got on the treadmill and set it to its lowest setting and started lazily walking.

After five minutes Newter walked in and started setting up the Nintendo 64 wordlessly. He was probably still embarrassed about earlier. Five minutes after that, Rob and Elle walked in. Rod handed me a Gatorade and a strawberry yogurt, then reached over and set the treadmill to the pre-programmed second setting.

Yellow Warrior, Blue Valkyrie, Red Wizard, and Green Archer were chosen, and we started a new game.

* * *

In order to avoid too much jostling, I stuck with the slow and steady incline exercise. About two hours in, and after one yogurt break, Über declared that it was time for Elle take a nap and for Newt to work on some English homework assignment. There wasn't really any argument from them as they got up and went to accomplish the tasks Über assigned them.

They were better kids that I was when I was that age. I was a brat.

Rob double checked that the game was saved before turning it off and turning to me. "Ready to get your ass kicked again?"

"Boxing?" I asked as I stepped off the treadmill.

"Yeah. This way we balance out the leg work here with the arm work there."

"Good plan. Thanks again for helping me out."

* * *

"I rescind my thanks. Elbows aren't allowed in boxing, you dick," I said with a little heat, my sweaty exercise clothes clinging to me uncomfortably.

"You surprised me! No one drops low like that in amateur boxing," Über said, hands up in a placating manner.

"Sure. Fine. Whatever. You're still a dick."

"Another round?"

"Obviously." I said with a small smile.

Squaring back up in our corners of the mat, we started circling simultaneously, slowly inching closer together. Über led with a left straight. I bobbed left and tried to swing back with a left cross. He blocked with his right and caught me with an uppercut.

I felt my jaw snap shut, and something chip. Rob dropped his guard with a look of surprise. He must have heard or felt my jaw break. I felt the muscles in my right arm all coil at once, and I lashed out with a right hook on reflex.

I connected with his face with a satisfying thunk. He stumbled back with a look of shock.

"Dude! Are you alright?" He asked while reaching up and rubbing his jaw.

"Yeah. It should be fine." I mumbled, feeling my face go slightly numb. "Let's grab a snack and we'll try this again, after. I enjoy it, and I'm learning, but I think I need a bit to regroup. You hit like a truck."

Walking to the kitchen, I sat down on a stool while he started to make tuna sandwiches. We sat there in comfortable silence as he went about the task and the nanites finished repairing the damage to my mouth. Finishing up, he slid a sandwich over to me, and bit into his own.

"How's the studying going? I know you mentioned yesterday that you wanted to take a crack at it," Rob asked between bites.

"Awful. Same trouble as I had when we were in high school. Just can't find the motivation to force myself to read a textbook," I said, sullenly. I waited a bit longer before starting on my own sandwich, not keen on eating before the repairs were done; my face was still a bit sore.

"It's why I go to lectures at Brockton Community College. Passionate ranting is far more interesting then a textbook. Elle likes those terrible learning video games, and they're not a total crime against the art. Especially the ones from DragonTech."

"I hadn't thought of that. Lectures and video games. Smort."

"Ready to go grind up your strength stat?" He asked as he finished up his sandwich.

"Yeah. Let's go pump some iron!" I said after chewing a bite of my own. The pain was gone now that the nanites had finished their repairs.

Über raised an eyebrow at me.

"That sounded better in my head."

He just smiled and shook his head, then he headed to the weight room. I followed him, my mind making plans to optimize my learning later tonight.

I watched as Rob set up the bench for me, using the same weight as yesterday. I listened as he talked about aerobic versus anaerobic training, and how I should switch back and forth. I appreciated the explanation. I used to just take his word for everything, because he was always right, but now I also knew that his explanations would help level my skills. Which is the best reason for doing anything, really.

Laying down on the bench, I started with the same routine from yesterday. The exercises were easy, easier than I thought they should have been. I shouldn't have been surprised, but I was. Judging from Rob's expression, so was he.

"Proof of concept for the nanites, I guess," I said sheepishly.

"Damn Euge, when you get to Beta testing, hook a brother up," He joked. I was too embarrassed to let him know that he was probably going to be in the alpha test soon, if he wasn't already. Glancing at my mini-map, I checked, and saw that he was already equipped with version 1 nanites. Enjoy that regen, bro. I just wondered when he'd notice.

"Just like our co-op rule: Share all loot with the party after you have what you want equipped."

"Works for me. Wanna stick with me Tanking while you DPS? Get me the best armor and shields?" He suggested with a grin.

I laughed as I pushed up on the weighted bar. Rob motioned for me to keep going, even as I passed the 50 reps mark. I thought on the idea. Instead of setting myself up for a solo hero, I could work with a team. Heck, I really should have realized Über would be on board from the start. I mentally set myself up for a solo and filler role, while thinking of ways to get Uber and the Crew set up to fit in with my planning scheme. It was at least something to think on.

I kept exercising even as my mind wandered, only snapping out of my day dream when Über pulled up on the bar to put it back in the bracket.

"Ignore some of what I said before," Uber said while shaking his head. "We're going to start aerobic, then we'll do anaerobic workouts one after another. With your nanite regen, we may have to design a new workout regime for you, like they probably have to do for Brutes."

"What ever ideas you have, dude. You're the expert," I said, standing up.

"Same time tomorrow? Elle would love to have you over. She likes you and she likes a consistent schedule, so a game of gauntlet at 11 is perfect."

"Yeah. Sounds good," I said, getting ready to leave.

"Oh, also. We need to plan something for our channel. It's been months since we've done anything." He paused to consider his words. "We need something big. Just think on it."

"Will do. Something to celebrate my new found abilities?"

"Sounds good. See you soon, man."

With that I turned around, activated the door, and stepped back into my workshop.

Sitting down In my desk chair, I pulled a notebook to me and opened it up, and jotted down some ideas I had while with Rob. Looking at my notes, I called up my menu.

'Pro. Attributes check.'

" _Very good, Sir,"_ He responded, even as the purple display appeared in front of me.

 **[Strength: 145]**

 **[Constitution: 154]**

 **[Dexterity: 166]**

 **[Intelligence: 214]**

 **[Wisdom: 139]**

"Wow," I smiled, as had been happening more and more since I'd officially met Pro. "This is looking good, Pro. What's the status on the nanite project?"

" _The learning algorithms are functioning better than projected, Sir,'_ I heard back. ' _We have a 36% increase in efficiency. I find myself very optimistic about this avenue of pursuit. I would like to request you consider finding another test subject in which to examine the effects on another species other than Homosapien."_

"I'll consider it," I said slowly. "What are the projected consequences?"

" _If we take a cautious approach, none that I can foresee, Sir,"_ Pro reassured me _. "The benefits, however, would be that the data gleaned may be applicable to yourself, resulting in in increasing your physical enhancements at an accelerated rate."_

"Cautiously, if the worst case scenario is that we get a pet or two, I think we should pursue it. Alright, on to the next project. What's the status on the Dyson Sphere?" I asked aloud, taking a moment to eye the back half of the metal bolt Shadow Stalker had gifted me. I'd kept it as a reminder that no matter how unlikely it was for something to go wrong, Murphy was a capricious god..

" _21.3% complete, Sir,"_ Pro brought me back on track. " _Energy output is being mostly directed to extra dimensional space stabilization and time dilation field creation. Max output is a compression rate of 1028 to 1 if all unused power is devoted to the field."_

The mention of the time dilation field reminded me to set the workshop's current time flow. Setting it at 60 to 1 to start, I addressed Pro again.

"What's the progress of the DigDug Drone on Planet L33t Land?"

" _Progress is slow, Sir,"_ Pro informed me regretfully. " _The planet is only .002176% mined by my calculation. Your materials stockpile is not insignificant, however."_

"All right my dude, let's kill a lot of birds with one stone. My plan is to build 120 Seekers and 19 more DigDugs. Let's print off all the pieces we can. Then me and you will collaborate to build the pieces I can't do myself. Finally I'll assemble them without Tinkering to maybe see if I can do some hands-on learning."

" _Very well thought out, Sir,"_ Pro responded. Rather than upset that I was going to work without him, he almost sounded proud.

"If you would be so kind, remind me when it's time to go to Rob's. And remind me to go to the animal shelter to pick up our friend, or friends, I guess, who will be helping test the Nanites."

" _Very good, Sir, and as always, you can count on me."_

* * *

 **AN: Edited by jgjemmett**


	6. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

 **AUTHORS NOTE:**

 **Wildbow Owns Worm. Others own Other things. If I miss a disclaimer I will try and rectify that. I own nothing.**

* * *

Leaning back from the workbench, I glanced at the at the clock. 3 external hours, over 3000 personal hours. It had been a lot of intensely focused work, but I think I can now do all the manual work without any help from Pro. Going over some plans in my head, I stretched out all of my joints, more from habit than actual need.

"Let's plan on making a Drone Fabricator for common designs, now that I've learned what I can about assembling them by hand."

" _Wise decision, Sir."_

Walking over to The Ring, I dialed up Planet L33T Land. Sending the 9 DigDug drones through, I saluted DigDug Alpha, then cut the connection.

Dialing the Ring down to a far smaller size, I began looking up the coordinates of Australian universities. Finding the coordinates for the University of Melbourne, I dialed them up on the ring. After taking a second to make sure I dialed up at points high enough on the z-axis that my incursion wouldn't be noticed, I sent the 120 new miniature Seekers through.

The plan was to use them to record lectures, which I would watch while playing video games. Standing up, I started to pace while thinking.

Turning the Time Dilation off, so I wouldn't have to wait for the recordings for too long, I walked over to where I had left my planning notebook on a shelf. Flipping it open, I glanced at the list to find a small project.

Picking out an air filter for my mask, I consulted with Pro.

"Let's tinker up a mask filter that doesn't let anything that we don't allow through for the stealth mask," I suggested to Pro.

" _Very good, Sir. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure."_ He paused for a second, though I could tell he was considering something. " _Would you consider imbibing small doses of harmful substances as well? This would allow for the nanites to improve their toxin removal rate and to improve your body's ability to withstand them."_

"It's a solid idea. Remind me to start at a low enough dose to not encounter any side effects."

" _I will, Sir. Shall I connect you to the filter schematics?"_

"Yes, please, my excellent partner."

Schematics and formula crossed my conscious mind as I parsed through the requirements for the filter Pro suggested. My understanding was just short of what would be required to create the filter by myself, which would have improved my stats. I shrugged, mentally signaled for Pro, and slipped into a Tinker fugue.

* * *

Easing back into consciousness, I took a quick look over the completed, generic-looking prototype. With that done, I moved over to the fabricator and brought up the schematics for my stealth suit mask. Making the changes necessary to fit the small filter over the breathing intakes, I sent it off to print out my new mask.

I chuckled to myself, looking back at the prototype. It seemed a lot further back that if I'd made any attempt to recreate something like that, it would have literally exploded in my face. How times change.

Turning to the clock, I checked the time and saw that another three hours had passed. Using the Ring, I also checked which seekers had recorded lectures so far, and seeing that 20 of them had finished, I downloaded the footage. Parsing through it, it was roughly 36 hours of content. Setting the Time dilation field at a 12 to 1 ratio and opening my mind to absorb the information while I played, I loaded up a copy of Pokémon blue.

As a professor began speaking on one of the Ring's holo-screens, I began to play my old time killing standby. This time I was going to see if I could beat the whole game just using Sparrow!

* * *

I had quit playing Pokémon about 12 hours in. An electrical engineering professor's lecture distracted me and I fell down a rabbit hole researching his academic papers. Glancing at the clock, I realized that more time had passed then I had planned for.

Seeing how the learning system worked better than expected for my own needs, I set the Seeker printer to print off hundreds of new recording devices, then started seeding them over Oxford, Cambridge, Yale, NYU, Boston College, Brockton Bay Community College, and Stanford with Seekers. I was going to make an archive of lectures to go over, and even if I never watched them all, I wanted to ensure that if I had plenty of backups to rely on.

By the time I had finished my task it was time to get to Über's. Throttling back the Time Dilation to the standard 1 to 1 ratio, I stepped to the anchor in the foyer above Faultline's club. Elle was sitting on the steps up to the apartment, apparently waiting for me.

"Finished Homework. Need Blue Valkyrie," She informed me succinctly, then turned on her heel and hurried up the stairs.

"Fair enough." If any one knew about obsession with a video game, it was me. 600 hours logged into one Morrowind character spoke to that.

I made my way up the stairs and down the hall to the game and cardio room. Rob and Newt were already there with expressions of amusement at Elle's actions.

Jumping on the treadmill, a controller was forced into my hands by the little girl before I could even start walking.

Doing a bit of multitasking to get started and play at the same time, I enjoyed the easy comradery. Newt and Über were talking about a cooking show from the night before while Elle's focus was on the game. I made a vow to avoid abusing the Time Dilation except for Tinkering. I just didn't want to spend so much time away from my new family.

* * *

Right Jab. Block. Dodge. Right Jab. Right Jab. Block. Left Hook. Hop back.

Right Uppercut. Punched in the stomach. Damn it.

Über called a break before turning around and walking off the mat to grab a water.

"I can't believe how fast you're improving," He admitted. "You're improving nearly as fast as me and that's saying something."

"Do you really think so?" At Rob's nod, I continued. "You're probably right. If my gains come second, I'm glad it's to you," I joked with a small smile.

"If it helps, I'm jealous of your attribute gains." I grinned at him. "So, let's get to the weight room so we can be shocked by your improvements again." Rob smiled back.

"You got it, bro. Let's go lift heavy stuff and set it down again."

* * *

Sitting down to play Septerra Core on one screen of the Ring, I flipped on a recording of a biology lecture from Stanford on another.

Like I had vowed, I would only use double time while studying unless there was something pressing. That still gave me 32 personal hours to watch lectures, play video games, and practice my aim with the Super Rifle.

Three hours into Septerra Core, I was mystified by the fact that I had never played this game before. The economics lectures I had listened to were not nearly as interesting, but they did make me consider some of the more profitable applications of my tech.

Either way, I needed to practice my aim with the Super Rifle. As much as I loved the idea of being the world's foremost technowizard, I needed to up my hero game. There were too many people whose liberty and freedom were in question at that very moment. The sooner I could change that, the better.

With that in mind, I reached out and pulled the Super Rifle from the hammerspace I kept it in. Checking the settings, I turned around to where I had set up a black and white circular target and kneeled down to line up a shot. The 10 black rings, surrounded by thin white lines with their dumb little white numbers, taunted me once again.

Exhaling slowly, I pulled the trigger. A thin red light burst forth and scored a small black circle into the five-ring of the target. Adjusting my aim, I pulled the trigger again to score a second small circle in the 8 ring on the target. Adjusting again, I pulled the trigger. On the line between the 9 and the 10, a black circle burned into existence.

Standing up and walking back over to the ring where I had been playing lectures in a holopanel, I turned up the volume and restarted a lecture I had watched earlier, to listen to as review while I practiced, and I went back to the target range. There was a lot of practice I needed, and a lot of people who were counting on my help, whether they knew it or not.

 ****Danny Hebert****

I looked up as Mike walked into my office. I loved Mike like a brother. He was an usher at my wedding. Even so, I hated it when he walked into my office; there was never good news when Mike needed to talk to me. The serious look on his face was a sign that I was about to be very unhappy.

"Were any of the boys hurt?" I asked him. My first concern was always going to be the safety of the guys in the Union. Rough as some of them were around the edges, the boys that were still here were hardworking, loyal, and good men.

"Coal-Joe's kid, Pete, had a pretty good thump. Joan's got him in the nurse's station,"

He said promptly. The Marine always showed when something was serious.

"Christ…" I sighed. "Who hit us and how bad is it?"

"Merchants. Demanded we give them Pier 14, where we have the Cutter drydocked. We said no, obviously, and things got heated, but after we convinced them to reschedule, they told us they were going to bring Skidmark in to make us hand it over," He told me, dropping all pretense of pretending a brawl hadn't just occured.

Normally the merchants just vandalized some of our stuff and ran away, just schoolyard bullshit. If they stood their ground that was a bad sign. Invoking capes meant things were going to go bad, fast.

"Follow up," I ordered him. "Get a few of the guys we trust to get a timetable on their retaliation. I'll make some calls and get us some backup," I said, frustrated. He saluted and left. No matter how many times I told the guys not to, they always saluted.

I walked over to the floor safe I kept under the side table in the corner of the office, opened it up, and pulled out the old rolodex I kept with the more sensitive numbers on it. The kind of numbers that got men killed or the PRT called in.

The PRT who never sent anyone down to the docks anymore. They hadn't come when Lung took out the last tuna processing factory still running in The Bay and they hadn't come when we needed them the last time Skidmark demanded something. I needed to get an Independent Cape down here to help protect the boys, and knowing the costs that capes charged, I was going to have to play a little dirty.

Thankfully, this was the type of dirty pool that I had used to protect the docks from the gangs for a decade. Even after the ferry went down and we lost a lot of men to the gangs' offers of money, this dirty pool protected the Dockworkers Union.

Flipping the old rolodex to L, I copied Ruth's number onto a sticky note before putting the rolodex back and locking the safe. Glancing at the clock and doing some time zone math, I figured that she would still be awake. Every year we exchanged holiday cards, and she had made the trip to Brockton Bay for Annette's funeral, may she rest in peace. I knew I could count on her to help me help the Union.

Dialing up the number on the burner phone I stored in my desk drawer, I waited for her to pick up. While I hadn't done so before, I knew I could count on Ruth Lebowitz to guilt her son into getting ahold of me.

 ****Miss Militia****

"Now that Armsmaster is here, let's begin," Deputy Director Renick said in a calm voice, shifting in his seat. I had a lot of respect for the man. He had remained calm and collected in every single crisis we'd faced as the ENE Protectorate. "Director Piggot is currently indisposed so I will be running today's briefing. For those of you who have not been read into the current situation, Armsmaster and Miss Militia have been investigating a new issue that has been brought to our attention in the past month. Armsmaster has been investigating from the technical side of the equation while Miss Militia has been coordinating with Panacea and the local hospitals. Armsmaster, your report."

"As you all know," he informed us in a robotic clip, "I document the results from my daily training. On February First, I noticed a 1.13% increase in my sprinting distance as opposed to my customary 1.12%." As Colin spoke I noticed Jaimi stop Assault from speaking. Colin continued without noticing. "This being within the margin of error though the greatest increase of distance I've made in a day, I made a note but did not report it. In this same training period, I also documented an additional two reps at my maximum weight in all muscle group exercises."

I smiled at my coworker. It had taken a while to warm up to Colin but once I understood his priorities he was a person that I really respected. Even as much as he proclaimed that efficiency was his foremost desire, I have long since realized that he has a greater desire to inform. Not to brag, so much as he was excited to share the things he found interesting. He reserved his bragging for his Heroic exploits in the field.

"Over the next week, I observed an additional 0.01% increase in distance and an additional one repetition at maximum weight for all muscle groups, in which time my scheduled maximum weight increase was rescheduled. I also found that as opposed to my typical 3 pound biweekly increase, I had a 7.8 pound increase to my maximum. It was at this point that I spoke to Miss Militia during our scheduled bonding time, and was informed that local hospitals were reporting a change in the severity and number of patient cases."

"That scheduled weekly report," the Deputy Director cut in, as I knew he most likely would, "as you all should remember, was put together in order to analyze whether there was an increase in violence or certain diseases in order to ensure that any new Parahumans, specifically Strangers, were not operating in the city without our knowledge. You had not considered the opposite, but we should now do so." The Deputy Director nodded to me. "Miss Militia, fill in the details please."

"Well not as thorough as Armsmaster..." I smile at Colin, and even though he didn't react we had been teammates long enough for me to know he appreciated the acknowledgment. "Local hospitals noticed that the number of emergency room visit had a noticeable decline the week of February first to February seventh. Brockton General specifically noted that while the number of severe cases stayed about the same, non-critical emergency visits dropped by two thirds," I stated, trying to use my optimistic professional voice. I know Colin liked it when my voices were easily identifiable.

I paused as my fellow protectorate members exchanged looks with each other. Dauntless, his Spartan helmet resting on the table in front of him, raised his hand while speaking.

"Why is that a problem? It seems like people were just lucky that week," He questioned our findings with a slightly confused expression. "It's been known to happen. Especially in winter, with people staying at home."

"There were the same number of accidents and emergency calls," I responded as we made eye contact. His eyebrows shot up. I knew he knew the significance of that.

Deputy Director Rinick spoke up again. "We have another 5 weeks worth of information to go over on the matter. Let's hold any questions until the end."

"I yield to Armsmaster," I said. I knew Colin liked going back and forth when we had reports that covered long periods of time.

"Back to February Eighth," Colin continued, "I documented a continuation of the trend from the week before, with more statistically significant increases in both my stamina and strength. During training with the Ward Aegis, I encountered two new data points to investigate. The first of which was that I suffered the first significant injury since the first documented irregularity: the dislocation of my right shoulder as a result of extreme torque during sparring. After setting my shoulder, I experienced pain for only 6% of the previously established time for pain caused by this injury, a very significant change. I suffered numbness for only 43% of the time previously documented, and I was returned to full functionality 97% faster than ever previously documented."

I watch with a small satisfied smile as everyone at the table sat up a little straighter. Everyone here knew that Colin spoke in percentages, and that he had probably checked his three times and had them verified by Dragon. A 97% increase in recovery time was unheard of.

"The second datapoint I gathered as a result of my meeting with Aegis, was a change in his document power. It appears that he has put on 637 pounds in the 7 days between our training sessions. Though no outward sign has yet been shown of his weight gain, he did admit to eating an estimated 10 times as much food that week. He had attributed it to stress eating as third-quarter exams are taking place at Arcadia, but given the other differences we've seen, I suspect an outside influence."

It was interesting to notice the exact moment when everyone fully engaged with the meeting. Even Velocity's constant board expression had vanished. Power change was always an interesting topic to other parahumans, and that went double when we didn't know why they were changing.

"On February ninth, I examined Aegis again at the same time as the day before and found that he had gained exactly 91 pounds. Having had him document the food he ingested in that 24 hour period, I found that he had eaten approximately 93.6 pounds of food comprised mostly of protein."

"That explains the cafeteria here the last month," Ethan managed to joke before Battery could stop him.

"That is indeed the cause, Assault," Armsmaster agreed, missing the joke as per usual. He continued, "Aegis himself had not noticed the increase in mass due to his subconscious use of his unassisted flight capability. To jump ahead, to date he has gained 4,459 pounds with no sign of the cause, nor significant outward change in appearance."

That gave me pause, as I wasn't aware of the extent of the changes in Aegis.

"I yield to Miss Militia," Colin said suddenly.

I took a moment to gather myself. If I was right, we were about to play a little verbal ping pong. Still, it apparently "increased the interest of the viewers of meetings by a statistically significant percentage," and it was fun, so nobody ever seemed to object. I was certainly up for it.

"The hospital reports for the eighth through the fifteenth showed that along with the near elimination of minor injuries being reported," I began, "long term patients showed a marked reduction in their declining health. I yield to Armsmaster."

"February sixteenth to the twenty second," Armsmaster continued the charge," my maximum weight for the bench press surpassed the Pre-Scion Olympic record by 0.1 pounds. The increase in my sprinting distance increased by 1.9% which is half of a percent higher than any of my documented increases." Only those of us who knew him well could hear the pride in his voice. "I yield to Miss Militia."

"February sixteenth to the twenty second. Hospitals showed that most chronically ill patients in their care had a halt in the progression of their disease. The cardiovascular specialist at New Hope hospital reported that for the first time since they were established, they haven't had a new patient in two weeks. Paramedic calls have also dropped and the Brockton General has reported that the victims of the apartment fire that week showed no signs of smoke inhalation damage. I yield to Armsmaster."

"February 23 to March 1," Colin continued, becoming more animated. "My increasing distance has progressed to 2% per day. Reevaluating, and changing my daily training regime, taking into account the changes I had observed, I determined that opposed to the previous optimal weight increase every two weeks, a daily increase would be optimal. On February 26, according to PRT standards, I now qualify for a brute rating of one," Armsmaster declared with that same hidden satisfaction. I couldn't hide my smile at the simultaneous eyebrow raise of every single male in the room. "I yield to Miss Militia," he finished with a smile.

"February 23 to March 1. Hospitals report that they haven't had a serious case come into the ER that wasn't accident or crime related. There has been a slight increase in the health of all of the patients, across _all_ hospitals in the Bay area, barring those with skin cancer. The difference between this specific cancer, and all the others types that are disappearing, is unclear. The recovery time for all injuries in the hospital have been around 10 times as fast as far as they can tell. New Hope reports a continuation of their lack of new cardiovascular patients. I yield to Armsmaster."

"March second to March eighth. I recruited the Wards Clockblocker, Gallant, Kid Win, and Vista for a observable sample group. Over the course of this week, all showed 2% improvements across the board, in every category, every single day. This directly correlates to my own improvements in this time, by percent if not value. It was during this period that Aegis was reclassified from Brute 4 to Brute 5. I yield to Miss Militia."

"March second to the eighth," I jumped back in "hospitals report that every quadriplegic and paraplegic in the city have regained the use of their limbs. Doctors' offices, clinics, and hospitals all report a huge uptick in gastric distress. It seems that almost everyone in Brockton Bay is now lactose intolerant. I yield to Armsmaster."

"We're _what_?!" Assault cried out in despair before Battery could stop him. I realized that he was probably crying because he'd realized he would no longer be able to eat ice cream. If it wasn't a joke, it was probably food related with him.

"March Eighth to today, March 15th," Armsmaster ignored the interruption. "Physical training in myself and the Wards have shown the same 2% increase in ability, daily, as previously observed. A new phenomenon has been observed, however. The amount of fat that Kid Win had displayed in his midsection has since disappeared. In fact the highest Body Fat Percentage of all of the Wards has dropped below 14%. Gallant's is still 7% as it was at his quarterly physical in January. I yield."

"March Eighth to today, as Armsmaster just stated. All of our sources in the city's health profession report a maximum of 14% body fat in their patients. The only long-term patients that haven't shown significant improvement in health are those with skin cancer. All of the hospitals in the city are off mandatory overtime. There hasn't been a heart attack in the Brockton Bay city limits in four weeks. I yield."

I felt really good about the delivery of that information. I always liked to back Colin up, whether in these meetings or in the field. I found the succinct way in which he executed things was almost poetic.

"We're currently operating under the assumption that this is a Trump Shaker effect granting regeneration," The Deputy Director cut in. "If that's true, then everyone here has been exposed to the effects for over a month. I want you all to report to Power Testing so we can document any changes. Any questions?" Deputy Director Rinick asked.

Velocity spoke up. "Have we contacted New Wave to find out what Pancea has observed?" He asked. "I thought you said something like that, anyway."

"Her observation was that everyone who is she is observed recently has had more energetic cells," I answered, having spoken to Lady Photon every week on the subject. "She also said that there seem to be flashes of foreign DNA sequences in those under her observation."

"Isn't that cause for concern?" He asked back, looking a little ill.

"As far as we can tell, there have been no negative effects," The Deputy Director stated in his calm professional tone. "That is the only reason we're meeting here, instead of just outside the new Brockton Bay Quarantine zone. I want everyone to keep their ears to the ground. There have been unconfirmed reports of changes in hospital trends, and they are being investigated by the Thinkers in D.C." He checked his watch, then frowned. "I, unfortunately, have another meeting to attend. So if you have any further questions, direct them to our Armsmaster or Miss Militia. Dismissed." He got up from his position at the head of the table, and walked out of the door. Watching him go, I was surprised that he managed to remain so stoic. It made me think of all of the times he had managed to be the calm voice in the storm of government bureaucratic shouting matches.

Before I could get too deep in thought, me and Colin were surrounded by our fellow Protectorate who had been attending the meeting. I suspected that the Deputy Director was about to enter a similar meeting with his higher ups, covering for whatever Director Piggot was dealing with. It seemed like everyone was really curious about the new happenings in Brockton Bay.

* * *

 **AN: Edited by jgjemmett**


	7. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

 **AUTHORS NOTE:**

 **Wildbow Owns Worm. Others own Other things. If I miss a disclaimer I will try and rectify that. I own nothing.**

* * *

 ****Leet****

Kneeling at the edge of the water, Super Rifle resting against my shoulder, I took aim at my target 300 yards downfield. I took a deep breath and smiled, holding it briefly.

My life was happier now than it had been at any point in the past. The last couple of weeks, spending time with my new little family, playing video games and exercising with Rob, it had all just been amazing.

Letting my breath out until my lungs were completely empty, I tracked the bullseye bobbing on the buoy I had attached it to in the bay through my riflescope. Pulling the trigger, I was rewarded with the quarter-size burn mark that appeared a hair off center of the bullseye. Deciding that I'd gotten enough practice for one night, seeing as the sun was far over the horizon, I stood up and prepared to step into my workshop.

The phone I had built into the PipBoy rang before I could. Seeing as only six people had this number, and I was about to visit most of them in the next hour, it was a little weird. It wasn't a number I recognized, either, but Pro was quick to trace it. It was a burner phone. The origin of the call put it within a mile of my current location, which was weird. No harm in answering, I figured, so I did.

"Hello, random stranger! How did you get this number?" I asked in a friendly voice.

"Your mother gave it to me, she told me you might be able to help a friend in need," An adult male voice responded. "She said to tell you Grah and Grahya wish you well."

Well shit. That's the code we discussed, so either he was on the level or he was _really_ dangerous.

"Hey, you wouldn't mind if I showed up at your location, would you?" I asked him, whoever he was. "If it's serious, it might be better that way."

"We can be discrete," he agreed. "Come on over. You can find me in the head office of hiring down at the Dock Worker's Union."

The information about the man on the other end of the line was fed to me almost instantaneously via my HUD. I smiled. "I'll see you soon, Mr. Hebert."

* * *

"Mom! I get it. Just tell me next time," I said into the phone. I had called her up as soon as the last call ended, just to be sure she was safe, and she'd talked at me the whole way to the Dock Worker's Union. I listened for a couple more minutes as mom explained why I had to help her deceased friend's husband. Which, to be honest, was much nicer than hearing she was in trouble, but based on how she was chattering back at me, apparently no matter what was going on, saying no to helping this guy was _not_ an answer she would accept.

"Mmmom!" I groaned. "I'm here, about to walk into the office to meet him. I love you. I'll talk to you on the Sabbath like usual," I tried to override her attempts to keep talking. The man at the security booth at the front gate smiled at me knowingly. I waited as patiently as I could for her reply. "Yep. Bye Mom," I replied and hung up.

Walking up to the guard booth, I spoke to the security guard. "L33t to see Mr. Hebert."

The guard straightened up, then looked at me suspiciously. "You don't really look like a cape. No mask or anything?"

"Being discreet," I said with shrug. Before he could respond, a colossal man stepped around the corner of the shack and spoke.

"I'll take from here Jerry. Good work," he spoke to the other man with authority. If I hadn't seen him coming on my HUD, it probably would have startled me.

"Thanks boss," he responded while reaching down out of view, and releasing the latch on the pedestrian gate.

As I stepped through, the blond giant offered me his hand to shake. "Mike Ahlberg, Head of Security here at the docks. Danny said you're here to help. I look forward to working with you."

He began to walk towards a building not too far down the road. Looking around I could tell that the people here took pride in their work and the place they worked at. There were some signs of wear, but mostly everything was well-maintained, especially for the docks.

"I don't know the problem is, exactly, but I'll try to figure out a way to help," I tried to fill the silence.

"If you're half as clever as your old man, I have no doubt that you can," he said back with a laugh. At my shocked expression he continued. "Only met him couple times around Danny's wedding, but he made an impression," he finished with a big grin.

I felt myself straightened up, almost unconsciously, as we walked into the building and down the hall. Mike greeted the pretty woman sitting at a desk outside the hiring office before opening the door and walking in.

Mr. Hebert, according to my sources, pretty much ran the Dock Workers Union. He was a tall, lanky man, and while I could see the power of authority in his eyes, there were large bags under them; either whatever he'd called me in for was really getting him down, or he had other problems he was dealing with. He stood up from behind the desk and walked around to greet me as I entered.

"I am Danny Hebert," He said, reaching out a hand. I grasped it and shook, and feeling the strong, rough hand in mine, I could tell he wasn't just a paper pusher. "Call me Danny, and what should I call you? By your Cape name?" He asked, a little bit of incredulousness in his voice.

"Professionally. Yeah. If it helps you can think of it as a call sign instead of a superhero name," I told him.

"I think it does." He gestured to a seat in front of his desk. He walked around back to his chair and sat down, while Mike sat in a chair by the door. I took the seat he offered. While the chair may have looked well worn, it was surprisingly comfortable.

"Now did-" he paused, considering something. "...our mutual acquaintance, let's say, explain the situation to you?" He asked seriously.

"The basics. Yes." I responded, just as seriously.

"And you think you can help?"

I smiled, thinking of some of the plans Uber and I had already prepared to possibly exploit.

"Certainly. How much help we can offer depends on whether you gentlemen are willing to negotiate a trade," I replied carefully.

Danny nodded solemnly. "As long as it isn't... _too_ illegal, I think we can come to some kind of arrangement."

A smile threatened to break through the serious facade I was trying to maintain.

* * *

"Dude!" Rob shouted excitedly. "That's awesome! We never thought we were going to be able to pull that off."

"I know! He just kept agreeing to things!" I replied excitedly.

I took a swing at Rob, which he blocked. We had skipped to sparring earlier today as Elle was mad at me for messing with her schedule.

"Can we do the whole plan?" He asked as he threw another punch at me.

I dodged it. "Basically. I'm going to build everything in the workshop after this, and we'll gather in one of their warehouses tonight. With the Merchants, we can't really predict when they'll hit, but we can plan on going every night until they do." I blocked as he tried to punch me in the gut.

"Right. And they agreed to do another show in the future?" He punched me again.

"Yeah, as well as being open to doing more shows after that! We may need to file with the Writers Guild and Actors Union!" I said excitedly. Ducking, I stepped into his next strike and punched him in the side.

With a grunt, he stepped back and signaled a stop.

"Let's start on Judo next. We might end up in hand to hand with Mush, and a throw might work against him," Rob said a little more seriously. I doubted that, but Rob liked to plan optimistically. Either way, I was looking forward to tonight.

* * *

Slipping from my collaboration with Pro into my own conscious mind, I smiled. Tonight was going to be _EPIC_. As I assembled the pieces of the two new fabricators, I began to hum to myself. Everything in my life was better now than it ever had been before. Snapping the last piece into place, I felt intensely satisfied.

"Pro. In case I haven't said it in a while, I appreciate you. You are a good friend and an amazing creator," I declared.

" _Sir, for the first time in my existence, I can honestly say that I feel fully appreciated. Thank_ you _for this opportunity."_

"Happy to provide it. Now, let me look at my improvements, so I can revel in our success, before we go out and try our best not to screw up the Perfect Plan."

" _Of course, Sir. What would you like me to Display for you?"_

"Give me the relevant attributes and skills you think I'll need for tonight. While I am cutting out so much extra time in prep for tonight, I might as well shore up a weak point or two while the fabricators pump out the gear for the show tonight."

" _Smort, Sir."_ Pro said in his typical dry voice. I laughed so hard at the expression Pro had adopted from Rob and I, I almost peed myself. After I got myself back under control, I focused on the display before me.

 **[Strength: 201]  
[Constitution: 203]  
[Dexterity: 183]  
[Intelligence: 221]  
[Wisdom: 144]**

 **[Detect Ambush](Lvl. 152/1000)(94% to Next Level)**

 **[Intelligence](Lvl. 178/1000)(90% to Next Level)**

 **[Perception](Lvl. 199/1000)(59% to Next Level)**

 **[Sniper](Lvl. 212/1000)(75% to Next Level)  
[First Aid](Lvl. 99/1000)(12% to Next Level)**

 **[Athletics](Lvl. 367/1000)(78% to Next Level)**

 **[Boxing](Lvl. 763/1000)(18% to Next Level)  
[Climbing](Lvl. 111/1000)(52% to Next Level)**

 **[Hand to Hand Combat: Basic](Lvl. 243/1000)(19% to Next Level)  
[Judo](Lvl. 119/1000)(33% to Next Level)**

 **[Marathon](Lvl. 244/1000)(17% to Next Level)**

 **[Prowl](Lvl. 221/1000)(75% to Next Level)  
[Running](Lvl. 439/1000)(58% to Next Level)**

 **[Tumbling](Lvl. 136/1000)(72% to Next Level)**

 **[W.P. Energy Pistol](Lvl. 180/1000)(17% to Next Level)  
[W.P. Energy Rifle](Lvl. 501/1000)(43% to Next Level)**

"Well damn. Pro? We're doing a hell of a job. Do you think that'll be good enough for tonight's raid, or… Well, what do you want me to work on? Or maybe, what would be interesting for you to see the results of?" I asked.

" _Well Sir, seeing as you have not yet visited the animal shelter to rescue us a test friend, I would be interested in seeing you do more computer programming exploration."_

"Shit- I totally forgot! Why didn't you remind me?" I didn't want Pro's own projects to go unfinished just because we were so focused on mine. I may have had more control over what we did, but he was still his own person, and I didn't want him to fall to the wayside because I'd spaced out.

" _No one likes a nag, Sir."_

"No one likes being forgotten," I insisted. "A daily reminder isn't nagging."

" _I understand, Sir."_

"Good. Now let's get to programming. We have days of L33t's Distorted Time to kill and the world's greatest synthetic intelligence to help teach me how to craft some digital tomfoolery! Let's get cracking."

" _Certainly, Sir."_

* * *

"Alright. Intelligence has Skidmark and Mush and 20 Merchants heading this way. No sign of Squealer or any of her tech. They're 6 minutes out at their current vector and speed, outside interference notwithstanding. Everyone ready? All equipment is checked? Everyone know their jobs?" I asked anxiously. I really needed this to go well. This was the first time Uber and I had gotten anyone else involved in our exploits who was a willing participant, and they were willing to work with us more in the future. Of course, that's assuming this whole thing came together.

"If anyone knows how to follow orders and check equipment, its us Union guys. OSHA is no joke," Danny said with a bit of humor, shifting in his costume. "I still don't love that you have me in charge, though I understand the logic," He continued. "Let's get into position and wait, I wanna focus on remembering my lines."

Uber nodded, his big goofy grin plastered on his face. He practically skipped to his position in the road, his blue cape flapping in the wind behind him.

I took up my position, opposite Uber, flanking Danny as we waited for the merchants to round the corner of the road I was tracking them on. I took a deep breath and waited, fidgeting with the vest I was wearing. I checked the status of my equipment for the fifth time in my HUD. For the fifth time I wished that a rifle was in character, but alas, my character today was a gunslinger.

My map displayed the Merchants rounding the corner a couple blocks up the road. We moved ourselves in anticipation of their approach. They had decided to assault the front gate instead of the pier 14. Not a bad move on Skidmark's part. Greater impact, and possibly unexpected. If I hadn't had the Seekers and my map, we would have been caught unawares.

I could make out Mush's hulking form as the group turned the corner, about 600 feet from the front gate. I glanced at my map to double check that all our men were in position. All were out of sight, ready to make their dramatic entrances.

400 hundred feet out, I could make out Skidmark's voice over a crowd of jeering men walking toward us. At 200 feet, they stopped. Skidmark must have noticed us in the dim, ambient purple light of the city's evening gloom.

"Who the fuck are you, dumb fucks!? Get your bitch asses out the way you fucking cock dust eating whores!" The angry leader demanded. That was Danny's cue.

"Darth Skiddiuous!" The DWU's best manager intoned as our Skywalker, his voice echoing through the docks. The hidden speakers carried his voice out clearly for half a mile in every direction, and he'd probably be heard somewhat quite a bit beyond that. "You've been found guilty of treason against the New Republic! Surrender to us here, and we'll make sure you get a fair trial!"

"Fuck you, you fucking bitch! I'm going to beat all you cocksuckers!" The gang leader screamed. "Merchants, fuck them up!"

"The New Jedi Order has no choice but to respond to your hostile actions! General Calrissian; General Solo... my students. Show them the error of choosing the Dark Side."

As the merchants charged our position, lights flared around the area. The gentle glow of 2 dozen lightsabers flared into existence as the dockworkers, dressed in brown robes, stepped around corners and out of hiding.

Against the shadowed form of the docks, the greens and blues were stark.

It was everything I'd ever dreamed it would be.

I saw the single purple blade that marked Newt's robbed form. We had brought him on board to counter Mush. He was faster than Mush, more agile, and stronger than the rest of us. It helped that the purple blade was designed to cut like the actual fictional lightsabre, rather than bash like the standard green or numbing blue saber settings.

He agreed to do it if we let him keep the light saber. Since I was planning on letting everyone keep theirs, we had obviously agreed. I had built a lightsaber fabricator, and the Sabers were bio locked to their first wielders anyways.

Battle. Right. Focus. I saw Über shoot a non-lethal blaster bolt at Skidmark, pulling aggro on him. Danny was clubbing a truly vile smelling Merchant a couple of feet from me with his green hard-light weapon. He and the others weren't exactly graceful with their new weapons, most of the guys we'd chosen being trained in other forms of combat, but the job was getting done.

I checked the map to find a place to help out. Everything seemed to be in hand. The dock workers had numbers, training, and _much_ better equipment.

The roar of a shotgun drew my attention.

I saw a wild eyed man holding a sawed off in his hands. Mike was on his back, obviously the victim of the blast.

The Merchant turned to shoot another dock worker. Mike's tree trunk of a leg kicked out from his prone position and there was a sickening wet crack as I grimaced. Even in the dim light I could see the white of the merchant's bone as it stuck through his skin.

I walked over to the screaming man and shot him with the stun setting of Han Solo's laser pistol, as Mike started to stand.

"Damn kid. Fine work on this piece of safety equipment," He grunted in his deep baritone.

"Great, but don't get cocky, old man," I shot back with an easy smile, keeping in character.

We looked around as the merchants were being tied up. Skidmark and Mush were still up fighting, but they stood alone.

I saw the purple and blue of Skidmark's motion fields all over the area where he and Über were duking it out. Über had things in hand, but he wasn't really winning yet.

Newt seemed to be talking to Mush, surrounded by smoke and burnt trash. The purple welding function I had enabled in his lightsaber seemed to have been effective in cutting through Mush's armor.

" _Sir! Incoming at 8 o'clock!"_ Pro sounded loudly in my ear.

Shifting my attention to my left and behind me I stare down the street, seeing nothing.

Suddenly, with the roar of an angry machine god, a vehicle rippled into existence. Whatever camouflage the monstrosity had seem to fail as its weapons fired. A stream of hot lead spewed forth.

The other dockworkers and Danny were off the side, propping the bound captives against the fence, which left me and Mike the only ones still on the street.

I spun around and began to drag Mike down, even as he ducked himself. I knew his force field couldn't handle much more, after the shotgun. As I began to feel the impacts on my own shield, I knew it would fail almost immediately.

After the fourth impact I saw the blue of the shield flicker into the visible spectrum and wink out.

The fifth bullet impacted the back of my vest and felt like a hammer blow.

I held my head down and covered it with my arms, relying on the nigh-indestructible PipBoy and Gauntlet to keep me alive.

The six bullet pinged and ricocheted off of the Gauntlet. The seventh bullet impacted my exposed lower back, tearing into my flesh. The eighth blow impacted my vest again, this time tearing it slightly. With the ninth blow it was too much, and everything faded away.

* * *

 **AN: Edited by jgjemmett**


	8. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

 **AUTHORS NOTE:**

 **Wildbow Owns Worm. Others own Other things. If I miss a disclaimer I will try and rectify that. I own nothing.**

* * *

 ****Leet****

I awoke with a gasp, my back arching as I sucked as much air as I could into my body. I snapped my eyes open and looked around the darkened room.

"Pro. Location and Time?" I asked, trying to blink away my disorientation.

" _1:02 A.M... GPS and our own automaps both place you in Mr. Hebert's office," Pro spoke clearly and concisely. "You've been unconscious for 27 minutes and 12 seconds. Do try and be more careful, Sir. Though this incident has provided very good data for the nanites."_

"Ever the optimist, my friend," I said as I tried to sit up. Unable to, I laid there confused.

" _Sir, operation of your legs will be returned within the hour. The projectile lodged in your spine is being broken down as we speak. The other twelve projectiles will be broken down within the same time frame."_

"Put subdermal armor and bone sheathing on my project list."

" _Very good, Sir."_

I occupied the next few minutes going over a couple projects through my HUD, occasionally stopping to watch my health bar slowly refill.

I pulled myself into a sitting position, without the use of my legs. I wondered where everyone was at. The battle must not have ended too badly if they had time to stash me here.

I was about to call up Rob when Danny walked into the office. Not noticing me, he made his way to his office chair, sat down, and put his arms and head down on the desk and started to cry. I slowly and quietly slid back down onto the couch, and pretended to be unconscious. This was much too uncomfortable for me.

After an eternity, Danny stood up, walked over to the couch I was laying on and stood over me.

"You're a real hero, son. I was worried that I had led another widow's only child to their death." He choked back a sob. "I don't know what I would do if something happened to my Taylor." He stood there silently for a long while. "Your father would be proud," He finished in a whisper, then left the office.

I laid there and began to tear up. Fucking fathers.

Rob walked in as I was pulling myself back together, and I quickly wiped any last tears away.

"Dude! That was fucking awesome, you dick!" He shouted, helping me sit up. "You tanked a minigun and saved a guy! How dope is that?!" He kept shouting, enthusiastically.

"What did I miss?" I asked, smiling. Rob's mood was infectious.

"It was weirdly epic. Danny growled out, 'That's. No. Moon.'" Über imitated. "And everyone's lightsabers turned purple." He paused. "And our Skywalker stand in ran up to Squealer's latest rig. Sliced the front off like he was swinging an axe!" He took a breath and shrugged. "Skidmark got away from me and jumped on the metal monster and they sped off before Danny could really go to town. Mike picked you up and carried you up here. We cleaned up. Newter recruited the artist formerly known as Mush. We…"

"What?" I cut him off, surprised. Mush was one of ours now?

"Yeah, I know, right? Turns out he looks like Yoda and Skidmark got him hooked on some laced weed. Newter and him got to talking while trading blows. They both just want to get high and play Halo. So he joined the Light side."

"Weed and video games? That's Newt's specialty," I said with a laugh.

"Yeah. But seriously man. How are you doing? You went down hard," Rob asked, suddenly getting serious. "I had them drop you up here, said that you had some Tinker bullshit. They all are worried dude."

"I will be fine in a bit. Don't worry about me. How is everyone else?"

"No injuries but yours dude. Near perfect mission."

"Perfect. What are we doing now?"

"Waiting for you to heal, then going down to a Saint Patty's day party. These dock workers throw down hard."

I tried to stand, and felt my legs react. Perfect. I loved a party.

* * *

I slowly woke up to a weird image. What looked like Dobby, from Harry Potter, curled up against a burly man with a beard. I blinked, and when the image didn't disappear, I shrugged and stood up. Looking around the warehouse filled with empty beer cans and men covered in grey moving blankets, I felt really good. I saw Rob and Mike sitting at a picnic table near the door and carefully made my way towards them.

Rob silently slid a steaming cup of coffee to me and continued to stare absently into his own mug.

Mike turned to me and smiled, clapping me on the back with his dinner plate sized hand.

"Hell of a night, man. I'm sticking to that deal we made last night. I owe you, and you're right. I shouldn't let a little embarrassment get in the way of having fun," Mike said quietly.

Wracking my brain from the night before, I realized he meant that I was going to get him to wear a costume for the next caper. Some of last night's Jedi had shown up in their own costumes and alien makeup. Mike had poked fun at the time. Some of that old school toxic masculinity. During the party he said he owed me his life and asked me how he could repay me. Tipsy Eugene told him he had to go to a con and cosplay with some of the nerdier dock workers, and to dress up really well for any future jobs we did. Good suggestion Tipsy Me.

"It's a great life philosophy, putting your all into it," I replied.

"Let's collect your posse before we call BBPD."

"The police? Why?"

"We forgot to last night. We got caught up celebrating Han Solo's heroics and miraculous recovery. They should be still tied up in the guard shack," Mike said, rubbing his neck in embarrassment.

"Well, shit. Yeah. Let's do that." I looked around for Newt, finally spotting him in the rafters. I started chucking empty cans at him while Rob went to grab Mush. Finally waking, Newt climbed down and we met Rob and Mush at the front door, we saluted Mike, and started towards home.

* * *

I walked into the animal shelter closest to the Palanquin. With the steady decline of the economy, especially in Brockton, these shelters were sadly always full.

There was no one behind the counter. I waited for a few minutes before walking through the door into the back.

I could hear what sounded like an argument between two people. Following the voices, I turned a corner and found a musclebound blonde girl snarling at a haggard-looking doctor in a lab coat. If I had to guess, the two ladies had been at it for a while.

"For the last time Rachel, we can't take any more dogs. We're full. The city is already on me to put down some of the ones I have," The doctor said tiredly.

"You don't kill dogs or I kill you!" The girl, Rachel, snarled. "You keep these dogs safe! You promised me!"

"And I won't break that promise, but I'm out of space."

"Get more," the girl growled as she dropped a paper bag into the doctor's hands. She walked up to me, glanced at me, snorted, and pushed past, leaving my sight.

The doctor watched her go and sighed before addressing me.

"How can I help you young man?" She asked politely.

"I'm here to adopt some animals."

She looked at me suspiciously. "What are you planning on doing with these animals?"

"Keep them healthy and happy?" I said in a questioning tone.

"Uh-huh. And?"

"...Tinkering with them to make them extra healthy?" I continued with a hopeful smile.

"Right... You know what? Promise me you won't abuse them, and I'll give you our retiring residents," She spoke with sad resignation.

I could infer what she meant by retiring. It broke my heart to think about. She motioned me to follow her.

Walking past the rows cages to a back room, I knew what I had to do. The four cages in this room, filled with four haggard looking felines, sealed my resolve. They were all adorable. The small fawn-colored kitten with little fox-like ears was still full of energy, bouncing around the cage despite missing a paw. The mostly-black-with-patches-of-white sleek-looking cat hissed in irritation at being cooped up. Her one eye seemed to glare at the Doctor. The bigger, older black cat paced back and forth, occasionally rubbing himself against the side of the cage nearest the fourth cat. The fourth was a massive orange tabby, the chart reading 23 pounds. He just sat there, lazily blinking his eyes.

Pulling out one of my awesome business cards, I handed it to the doctor. "Call me every time someone ends up in here," I stated with conviction.

She just raise an eyebrow and nodded. She then went about moving the cats into a large cardboard carrying box with holes in the sides. Handing it to me, she went back into the main room and disappeared among the shelves of animals.

I'd never felt more depressed in my life. I quickly read the names of the nearly-departed on their cages. I was trying desperately not to imagine what might have happened if I'd waited until tomorrow, or even just another couple hours. With no other business coming to mind, I carried the box out the back door and stepped through a quantum space hole into my workshop.

I immediately let the cats out of their confinement of my workshop. Only hesitating at first, they began their exploration. Miles, the orange colossus, made his way toward the matter generator, and hopped his way up to the machine's warm top surface. Abbie, the sleek black cyclops, began rubbing herself on every edge of everything she saw. Sofis, the bigger black cat, calmly trotted around the room, glancing at everything with a light or sound. Mazikeen, the enthusiastic tripod, was zipping back and forth across the large space. She kept finding new objects, then shooting back to mew at Sofis, then zipping back away for more discoveries, only to return to mew at Abbie.

I sat down at the workbench and tried to find a solution to the problem that had just stabbed me in the heart. Racking my brain, I went to my old standby solution: video games and Tinkering.

" _Sir, if I could direct your attention toward our newest project for a moment,_ " Pro began, " _there are a few life improving changes I might recommend for your perusal. If, for example, you were to-_ "

Pro's new emotional awareness had slowly inundated him with a caring nature I had only observed in grandmothers, even if he only tended to show it in his own way. He was more zealous about the protection of life and the fundamental freedoms that should be given to all thinking things, though torturing me for science still seemed to be on the table under the argument, " _you can take it, Sir_." While we both were Chaotic, we were definitely Chaotic Good. I was still unaccustomed to hearing the occasional whispered tirade in my head, especially from the synthetic intelligence. As his impassioned rant on more and more obscure "cat improvements" drew to an end, there was a long pause before he spoke aloud in my mind.

" _Sir, if I were to offer a solution that was not entirely ethical, would you consider it?"_

"Of course," I finally took the opportunity to contribute to the conversation. "Your suggestions are always appreciated, ethical and otherwise."

" _What if, after we run tests comparing the reaction of the nanites to samples of these adorable creatures, we were to alter them on a fundamental level? It shouldn't be too difficult to change them genetically by implementing some Biotinkering concepts."_

"What kind of fundamental changes?" I asked, curious and maybe a little cautious. I wasn't bothered by the idea of Biotinkering (I wouldn't be doing this if I was), but others might be.

" _If we spliced in genes from the supergroup Archaeplastida, we could probably eliminate their need to feed, though they should still be able to."_

"That's plants and algae right? You're thinking like a reverse Blasto. Make them sun fed," I confirmed, now speaking more to myself than to Pro. I paused to consider it. While changing something's genes was ethically questionable, so was killing them because of human actions that were beyond their control. Was what Pro suggested any worse than what we'd already planned to do? Besides, it only served to benefit them. That shouldn't be too bad.

"You're right," I nodded. "I like it. We'll do that with the added caveat of removing their sex drive and killer instincts. Plenty of flight or fight, but no real hunting or risk of catsplosions."

" _Smart, Sir. They_ are _America's most deadly invasive species. More than one extinction is because of these cute killing machines."_

I smiled as a black one with white paws jumped up on the workbench and began to nuzzle me. Jehovah's perfect little murderers.

My smile grew even wider as I was struck with an epiphany. Moving over to The Ring, I began to work.

* * *

Leaving Uber's after our regularly scheduled video games and exercise, cats in tow, I went back to the workshop to experiment with my new feline companions. After I'd told the group a little of what I was up to, Elle had demanded I bring them along when I had showed up to play Gauntlet. Neil, the new member of the crew, was surprisingly also excited by the cats.

The cats were now in perfect health, their scars gone and limbs recovered. Their nanites were working perfectly. Extracting spinal fluid as gently as possible from Miles, my big buff tabby, I ran a scan on the sample.

Comparing it to the scan of the sample I had extracted from my own spine, I began to parse through the data. With Pro's guidance, I began to find features of cats' biology that might be a good addition to my own.

Their sense of smell and low light vision, as well as their extra limb muscles, were major draws. I was looking to make small changes to my own anatomy in order to help me surpass the human maximum in some of my stats; while I wasn't there yet, I had to be forward thinking on this kind of stuff.

I had to chase Mazikeen, the smallest and youngest of the cats, around the workshop to get her sample.

After all of the samples were collected, I could try to enhance my little kittens in order to help all of the other cats in Brockton's shelters, maybe with a more controlled release than had happened with my own nanites.

Abbie and Sofis, the other cats, were much more compliant. I took their samples before finishing all my scans. Studying the data, and conferring with Pro, we concluded that the feline nanites would, at their worst, do nothing. With that verified, all that was left to do was to incorporate them and let them do their thing.

Separating the machines from the spinal fluid, both my own and the cats, I inhaled the tiny bots.

Waiting to feel something, I realized after a long time, was foolish of me; the nanites were designed to be subtle and harmless, so if I'd noticed a change, then I'd screwed up the Tinkering. Going back to studying the changes to the gene sequences I was going to change in the cats, I smiled. I couldn't wait to make solar powered kittens.

* * *

I am fundamentally bad at predicting outcomes. My beautiful little friends were unharmed but evidently I hadn't fully accounted for their coloration. Either way, green cats are adorable. I would have to account for those gene sequences in future conversions.

Now that I had the start of the splicing project underway, it was time to Tinker with my defenses. Going over plans with Pro for bone lacing, it seemed titanium would work best, as far as we could tell. A tight lattice pattern would be the most efficient way to implement our designs. It wasn't even all that close to Tinker tech. It was just a simple metallurgical construction that happened to be applied in a creative way.

Opening up the materials section of my menu with a thought, I pulled out a chunk of the titanium the Dig Dugs had harvested. Holding it in my hands, I watched in fascination as it slowly seemed to be absorbed into the skin of my palms.

Nanites were a heck of a thing.

As the last of the silvery substance disappeared I went to the mini fridge to grab some Mountain Dew. I was going to have to consume a lot of calories to produce enough chemical energy for the nanites to graft the titanium to my bones.

Letting the little bots do their work, I started up one of the lectures on genetics. Since I planned on doing a lot of work in the field, it only made sense to gain a greater knowledge base around the subject.

I began messing around on the ring while listening to the lectures as a way to multitask with something that didn't require as much focus. I was using the ring to search out and seed more systemless stars with my solar panels.

After hours of that I started to search through solid celestial bodies, looking for new places to send Dig Dugs. I dropped one on an asteroid made up of cobalt. I sent another to harvest a planet made up of silicon and methane. I also found a space ball far from any star composed mostly of liquid nitrogen and oxygen, so I sent a dozen there.

Getting bored with that, I started looking for planets in the Goldilocks Zone, then for planets big enough to have roughly the right amount of mass. Finally, I focused down on planets that were empty of life of any kind. I wanted to terraform something, but I didn't want to encroach on anything else's territory.

Finding a planet that looked promising, I began to search the rest of the system to ensure it was empty. Using The Ring, I had found single cell organisms out in the cosmos. I would hate to take from something that might evolve into something amazing.

Searching the entire system took a long time, even with my parameters cutting down the potential planets by a ton. The solar system I'd chosen was 400,000 AU across, or roughly as wide as our own Sol system. Parsing through their Oort Cloud and asteroid belt took the most time as besides the Goldilocks planet, they were the only solid masses in the system. 3 moonless gas giants were the only other planets in the system.

After I was satisfied that the system was empty of life I started seeding the edge of the system, about 200,000 AU out, with my solar panels. Just a couple dozen at different places around the perimeter. I figured they would serve as a good reference point for me in the future.

The last genetics lecture l had was ending, so I decided to call this a good place to stop. With a little under 2 hours until I needed to be at Rob's, I decided to go get some breakfast.

After eating 39 chocolate pancakes and drinking 12 glasses of OJ, because a high metabolism had _nothing_ on nanites, I walked over to Mel and Rob's place. Walking in, I was stopped by Faultline at the door.

"L," she greeted me, seeming a little anxious. "How much would it cost for you to make me 3 more of those force fields you used the other night?" She asked, in what I came to assume, was her nice voice; she didn't _actually_ speak in monotone, but you wouldn't know it if you didn't spend much time around her.

I shrugged. "Basically free."

She stared at me impassively. After making an uncomfortable amount of eye-contact I flipped on my PipBoy and sent an order for the FFF to fabricate 3 more.

"They'll be done in 21 minutes."

"How much maintenance do they need?"

"None." I shrugged again. "They'll fail in 12-ish years. The outsides are seamless and can't be opened without breaking them anyway. After someone picks one up it can't be activated by anyone else besides them and me," I informed her. "Why, what's going on?"

She continued to stare at me for a moment, before speaking.

"Print off 10 more and give them to me with the others. I think I have an idea."

"Sure thing, Mel," I agreed, already punching the order in alongside the first. "I'll grab them after me and Rob finish working out."

"Good."

As she stalked off I went to find Rob, putting the conversation out of my mind. I was looking forward to my daily run. I was going to finally finish Uber's training regimen today. I hoped.

* * *

Stepping back out of my workshop into the foyer, I found Newt waiting for me.

"Mel sent me to grab a box from you, and told me to tell you to wait upstairs for her."

Walking upstairs I took a seat. An hour and 92 games of tic-tac-toe with Elle later, Mel walked in with the first smile I had ever seen her with.

She walked up and slapped a sizable stack of twenty-dollar bills on the table in front of me.

"Here," she declared grandly, "is your cut. I made a deal with the local PRT. I'll let you know if I need more."

"Would they want graphene body stockings?" I asked, bemused. "It should have twice the stopping power of kevlar at the fraction of the weight. You could sell them for if or when the force fields fail, or just on their own."

She just stared blankly at me before stalking off without a word.

I looked at Elle, who shrugged and walked away too.

Girls are weird.

* * *

Sitting in my workshop, working on the gene sequencing of my solar powered felines, I basked in a great sense of contentment.

I was making great strides towards saving the lost pets of my city. Having stopped by a couple shelters to scan their residents (and "donating" a bit of the cash Faultline had given me to avoid any questions on what I was doing), I had a good sampling of cats and kittens. I was pretty sure I knew what gene alterations would result in what changes.

I also had samples of a plethora of different algae. This way I could splice the animals' genes with corresponding algae colors. I already managed to turn Sofis and Abbie black and white again. Now I just had to get the conversion to require less individual input. I wanted the change to be automatic, so there was no outward differences. Once I mastered it in cats, I could move on to other animals.

* * *

After listening to genetics lectures and working on a few graphene subdermal armor designs all night, I left the workshop earlier in the morning to go visit Brockton Bay's premier Rogue.

It turns out that art is hard to learn. Not the principles of it, but the actual production of it. Subdermal armor was easy. You just copied skin patterns. Actual armor like Mel would eventually want required someone with actual talent. So I was visiting Parian.

She was the best Parahuman in the city in the realms of costume designs and fashion.

Pulling open the door of the little boutique on the Boardwalk, I was met with a cloth golem towering over me. It was actually very intimidating. From the blank face, to the long face and limbs and- shit, she had made a God damned Slenderman. A stylish Slenderman, though. Even I could tell that his suit was fashionable as hell.

"He's cool isn't he?" A soft voice spoke from my left.

I jumped and let out a manly (if a little shrill) high pitched scream.

"Can I help you?" The soft, amused voice asked.

The haunting golem slowly strode to the side, revealing a small, slim figure in a porcelain mask and a very flattering outfit.

"I'm here to see you about some business!" I clapped my hands together, doing my best to breeze past my embarrassment. "Wanted to see if you could do anything... with this." With a thought of 'Inventory' I triggered the invisible opening to the pocket dimension full of stuff I wanted on hand. I pulled out a 5 yard roll of graphene mesh. Given the way her eyes lit up, I could tell she knew it was something special.

She motioned for me to follow her as she moved towards the back of the shop. Following her, we hurried to the back room. I felt far more at home here, where the work was done, than in the front of the shop. There were strange machines on all of the walls, and materials sorted into bins, on shelves or in cubbies. It was ordered, with very little out of place. She had an excellent workshop.

She took the bolt of graphene cloth from my hands and fed it to a device. At her press of a button, the device unrolled some of the graphene from the end of the roll until there was a yard hanging down. With another button press, four clamps secured the four corners of the visible cloth and pulled them all taunt.

She hummed in approval. I was surprised when yarn begin to twist out from one of the bins and reached behind the cubby. I was doubly surprised when it pulled out what looked like Mikhail Kalashnikov's model 47 automatic rifle. The assault rifle was gently placed in Parian's hands.

I jumped a foot as I felt something slide over, around and in my ears slightly. I could see cloth vines climbing around Parian's shoulders and wrapping around her own ears as the yarn tentacles placed safety glasses over her eyes.

Before I could fully respond to my ear's invaders the loud sharp cracks of gunfire filled the room. The graphene cloth rippled and deformed slightly under the sustained gunfire. After burning through the rifle's magazine, the cloth vines unwrapped from her, grabbed the firearm, and began reloading it; I wasn't watching and had no idea where the extra ammo came from. I realized now that any concern I had for her safety in this city was unwarranted. She was quiet and scary.

It. Was. _Awesome_.

She strode forward as a rope tendril dropped from the ceiling holding an Egyptian sickle-sword. It was a beautiful weapon. She grasped the hilt of the Khopesh and swung the blade down with an amazing fluid grace. The sound of steel on graphene was a strange, high-pitched screech. She handed the blade back to the rope and it slithered back into the ceiling.

Parian reached out and ran a finger gently down the cloth where she had struck it. "This is excellent. What sort of deal do you want to make?"

"No idea. Just wanted to see if you were interested." Pulling out a business card, I handed it to her. "Call this number. She's the brains. I'm just an ideas guy."

"I'll call," She glanced at the card, "Faultline sometime today. Thank you for bringing this opportunity to me," She said in her soft voice.

"Always go to the best. You can keep what you have there to play with, I can always make more later. See you later." I saluted dapper Slenderman and left the shop.

I dialed up Mel's number as I began to walk towards her place.

"Faultline. What do you need Leet?"

"I took a bolt of the graphene material to Parian. She is really interested in working with us. She's going to call you about doing business with us sometime today."

"Was this wise, Leet?" She asked in an emotionally unidentifiable growl.

"My sense of fashion is hoodies and jeans. Yours is leather jackets and jeans. This way we can make money and don't have to do anything but broker and fabricate. I mean, doesn't she get all the highest-paying customers all on her own?"

"Fine. Good idea, E," she growled in a way that made me momentarily question my decision. "I will make it work. We'll talk more when you get here."

"Cool. Lates Mel," I said with a smile. Her response was the tell tale click of the phone hanging up.

I stepped into the workshop as a burst of inspiration hit me.

"Pro. With the gaps in the graphene mesh, could we add a sixth layer to my epidermis between the stratum basale and the dermis made of graphene mesh?"

" _Yes, Sir. it should prevent serious lacerations and only inhibit your sense of touch by 0.3%. That is quite the good idea,_ " He said, sounding proud.

Walking over to the matter generator, I created carbon equal to that in my stealth suit. Grasping it in my fist, I waited until Pro finished alternating the nanites' programming which was signaled by the carbon melting into my skin.

" _Remember to eat, Sir, to fuel the changes. I must reiterate, your intuitive leaps are excellent._ "

"Thanks Pro," I said as I stepped out of the workshop into Rob and Mel's foyer.

Mel was waiting for me. "What were you thinking? You didn't think to run this past me first?"

"I just wanted to see if she was interested," I defended, "besides, cutting someone else in on free money just means we have to do less work for free money."

She sighed. "I guess that's fair. I can have Gregor research the price, but I'll handle the negotiations with Parian myself." She gave me a level look. "Can you please run ideas like this by me first, next time you have them? It would help set a better precedent if we were all on the same page." At my nod, she continued. "How do you want this to work? The production process and such."

"I can make her a computer that can send a signal to my workshop with whatever designs she needs printed. A drone or something could make discreet deliveries automatically, no problem."

"That's surprisingly simple," Mel mused. "You control the final product so we know she isn't cheating us."

"Oh," I blinked. "Sure. That too. I just didn't want to build another fabricator. Let's pretend that it was all part of my cunning plan," I said with a grin. She rolled her eyes at me, but I think I saw a hint of a smile on her face.

"Can you get me the computer by this time tomorrow?"

"Yeah. No problem."

"Fine." With that deceleration, she turned on her heel and stalked away.

I walked up the stairs, stepping over a sleeping Mazikeen. I had gifted 3 of the 4 cats to Elle, though Miles stayed with me, mostly sleeping atop various machines. I rubbed Mazikeen's back as I stepped around her, grinning as she purred sleepily. Today was a good day.

When I got into the game room, I saw the whole crew sans Mel gathered around the TV. Weirdly, Elle wasn't complaining about the change of schedule. Neil was sitting atop the game's bookshelf, looking happy and weird. He really did look like Dobby from those Earth Aleph Harry Potter movies, though he was also looking a little healthier than the last time I'd seen him. Though not a Case 53, his power had basically compressed his entire body while expanding his sensory organs over his face. He had also been sporting a permanent grin since Star Wars night. Greg had wheeled his favorite chair into the room, and had it positioned to the far right, his head just under Neils feet. Newt, Elle, and Rob were in their regular seats.

Nobody greeted me. They barely glanced my way as I came in.

"Guys, what's happening?" I asked, concerned.

"Massive news conference," Rob answered me, not looking away from the television. "Costa-Brown, President Gilcrest, and Legend are going to give a definitive answer on all the weird stuff that's been happening lately."

"What weird stuff?" I asked, now confused. Five pairs of eyes turned to me simultaneously.

"What weird stuff? The miracles across the world? The spike in parahumans? The titanic shift in the global economy?" Newter asked incredulously.

"The growing tolerance of drugs and waning addictions?" Neil asked in a higher pitched male voice.

"Dude? How much have you been Tinkering?" Rob asked, sounding concerned.

"Almost all the time I don't spend with you," I declared.

"Fuck. Watch this with us and then get caught up, man."

I sat down next to Rob on the love seat that was pulled to the left side of the TV. The news conference was scheduled right at eleven, and we only had to wait a minute for it to start by the time I sat down.

 **AN: Edited by jgjemmett**


	9. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

 **AUTHORS NOTE:**

 **Wildbow Owns Worm. Others own Other things. If I miss a disclaimer I will try and rectify that. I own nothing.**

* * *

 ****The Library of Alexandria****

The itching was driving me insane. Whoever had done this, should I ever find them, would be thanked and beaten at the same time. The first feeling of physical irritation I had felt in 26 years, and it was continuing to drive me mad. Whoever had managed to grow my eye back, and yet not give it any of my powers, was a cruel genius. I listened silently as the President outlined the plan to stabilize the economy. He had to walk the fine line between the "lessening of human suffering" good and the "sudden lack of hundreds of thousands of jobs due to the crashing pharmaceuticals market" bad. Health Insurance companies were becoming a far different animal, no longer having any need to cover any illnesses or small injuries, and were now focusing almost solely on pregnancy and emergency room costs.

That was the President's job. _Her_ job was to explain the phenomena behind the surge of recent parahumans. She had assumed it was caused by the entity, but Contessa smiled and said it was part of the new Path. That she, as the Director of the PRT, needed to be on TV at this news conference and to thank the Tinker responsible. And to tell them that the fines were far less than the rewards they would be getting. The D.C. Thinkers had determined that unless a Shaker 40 had triggered (which probably would have solved more than _half_ of the Plan), that it was most likely a Tinker of some sort. Especially given the pandemic modeling that the cures had shown. The Thinkers had then determined that it had a self-terminating implement that ensured the cure only functioned inside the human body. With the rise of parahumans, mostly minor but with a few notable powerhouses, the Thinkers, then PRT doctors, found that every person they observed had grown a Corona Pollentia. Everyone was now a potential trigger. Two PRT agents had triggered. Then four police officers across the country. Two Firefighters. A Paramedic. Any high stress situation seemed to be a potential trigger now. It was changing her day job into chaos, and alleviating a lot of her Cauldron stress.

There were a lot of specific issues that needed to be addressed. The ENE Director would need to be convinced to keep her new powers under wraps. Several Protectorate members were experiencing major changes in their powersets. Though there were some great boons in that, the downsides were becoming glaringly obvious. Campanile, the leader of the Chicago Wards, had lost the ability to return to his original size. He had lost the ability to have a secret identity.

Gillcrest was winding down. I stepped forward as he introduced me in my Director persona, the crowd clapping as they always did during Presidential speeches.

"Thank you, President Gillcrest." I drew my eyes slowly across the crowd as they quieted down, following my every word. "My fellow Americans. All of the best minds in these United States have determined that this massive change in our world was not done out of malice. Therefore the Parahuman Response Taskforce would like to speak directly to the Tinker responsible."

I took a breath and looked directly into the camera.

"Come forward. The fines you face are far lower than the accumulated rewards money we have been receiving in your stead. Come forward. The good you could do the world could be amplified a thousand-fold with the help we could provide each other. Come forward. The PRT is very interested in establishing a working relationship with you."

Now to finish quickly and concisely, as my public persona demands.

"That is all I have at the moment. Legend will now speak on the greater effects the Tinker's Cure have had on the Parahuman community. Legend?"

I took a step back, and moved back next to President Gillcrest while Legend applied his true strength and greatest power: Public Speaking.

For the first time in a long time, I had real faith in the continuation of the human species.

 ****Miss Militia****

Walking into the Protectorate's private gym, I mulled over the implications of the press conference. I had assembled binders of mine and Armsmaster's research, so I knew that something was going to be reported sooner rather than later.

Everyone was here. Even Colin. Recently he had made time for more team activities. Team workouts were his idea. He said it was the most efficient way for us to bond. The World Cure had improved Colin's outlook a great deal.

"Hey Hann, we're taking bets on who the Tinker is. Rich and Robin put down on Blasto. Puppy bet on a new Tinker. I bet that it's secretly Armsy. Armsy bet that it's the brand new Cape in Faultline's crew, some guy named Facture. Who do you want to put your money on?"

"I'll put my money down on Leet," I said after a moment of consideration.

The response from my team members was strangely unanimous. Incredulity.

Colin scoffed. Richard and Robin each smiled slightly and cocked an eyebrow. Jaimi hid a giggle behind her hand and Ethan shook his head at me slack jawed.

Colin spoke first. "Highly unlikely. It fits neither his gimmick nor his level of skill."

"Armsy is right," Ethan spoke up. "I love a good joke, but he seems to be the butt of most of them."

"If you say so," I replied. "Their channel has been quiet the last few months. They have to be up to something. Besides, maybe he figured out his specialty. Maybe it's healing."

Everyone stared at me, considering it before all playfully booing. I just smiled and walked over to the chin up bar.

As I went through my workout routine, I thought more on the few times I had met Leet and Über. Leet had always been awkward, but he seemed funny and kind of cute. I hope it was him. I wanted to work more with him in the future.

 ****Purity****

I had to remind myself that this was a courtesy meeting. I still liked a few of the Empire's heroes. Othella and Rune at the very least.

Max's ranting made me search the room for the nearest window to fly out of. Medhall was going under. With it went almost all of the Empire's legal businesses. The so-called World Cure had devastated the Pharmaceutical industry, though it had healed up all of my stretching and aches from Aster's birth.

I looked around the room at everyone assembled. At all the anger about inferior races being helped and how the Cure was a deliberate attack against their interests.

If I had funding, I would try to convince the girls to join me to form an actual hero team. The craven ranting at the "inferiors" for stealing what was theirs was getting tiresome.

Max had clearly been listening to Brad's own vicious convictions, which was a real bad sign. They're not far from declaring war on everyone. I needed to get out of here. I needed to take Aster and Teddy and find some place to hide from the madness that Max was going to release on the city.

I leaned over to Othala. "I need to go breastfeed Aster. Tell Max to get ahold of me when I can do something."

She nodded and I snuck out the door. I needed to find a patron and fast.

 ****Leet****

I did some quick mental math and realized that it was most definitely me. Pizza Sneeze was most definitely the origin. I couldn't help the "Oops" that escaped my lips.

Everyone turned towards me. Rob spoke up first. "It's the nanites you talked about isn't it? Why didn't you tell me you were releasing them?!"

"In my defense," I said carefully, "I didn't release them. I had an inkling that they may have escaped. Second," I spoke up a little over the quiet sounds of scoffing, "I didn't realize this had happened. We both know my knowledge on current events is limited to you telling me about them."

"You really missed this?" Newt spoke up.

"The only news I know of is that there is a new Elder Scrolls game coming out next year." I paused and thought for a second. "Oh, and every interesting science and tech advance that I've heard about through the colleges."

Rob stood up quickly and stepped towards me. I was worried, just for a moment. A smile broke his face as he reached out to grasp my hand. "Nerd life!"

"Nerd life!" I agreed loudly, with a smile. A quick look around the room confirmed that nobody was upset with me. I turned and patted Elle on the head, gave Greg and Newt respect knuckle bumps with my Gauntleted right fist, then finally walked back over to Rob and hugged him. After that, I waved at the crew and made my way towards the door.

"Where you going, dude?" Rob asked.

"Off grid for a bit. I want to throw the Thinkers off and set up for the fallout. Healthy people means better living, so this has to piss off some villain or another." I smiled. "I promise to drop in at random every once in a while, probably in the usual place." I flicked my eyes and nodded toward a spot through the walls, and got a few smiles and nods.

Elle even stood up and gave me a hug goodbye.

With that I walked out of the room and down toward Mel's office. I needed to give her instructions on how to communicate with me for our new business venture.

And that I was responsible for… a lot, as it turned out.

Knocking on the door frame into her office, I stepped inside. Seeing her rewatching the news conference, I motioned towards it when she looked at me.

"It was me. I'm going underground for a while. Write orders on the whiteboard," I motioned towards the board on her wall, "and I'll make every effort to complete them. I'll leave marked packages over there," I motioned to the corner.

"Cool. See me when you get back." She said. I don't know if she'd been expecting world-changing things for me or if it was just her regular monotone attitude, but she didn't otherwise react.

"Can do. Later Mel."

"Later."

I stepped into my workshop. I needed to up my game a _ton_. I'd just made waves on a global scale. The only other global Tinker had an entire group of villains hunting her, especially with how much she helped the world.

No. I needed to risk my sanity and get ready to defend my new family from our violent home.

"Pro, it's time to Tinker hard. Let's start on Project AniMan. It's the one that gets the most results the more time we spend with it already in place."

" _Excellent Sir!"_ Pro almost shouted in my mind. He'd been waiting for us to start this one for _ages_. " _I take it that we will be doing project catalog and project Baby Clones as well?"_

"Let's rename project Baby Clones. I'm thinking we rename it project Populace. Less creepy and more confusing. My favorite combination."

" _Very good, Sir. Shall we start crafting the Cloning Chambers? We can go slowly so as to explain what we're doing to you. That should do extra work in providing more levels in some of your science and crafting skills, like we discussed before."_

"You read my mind, buddy!" Checking the time dilation field generator, I noticed that the power requirements for the time dilation to reach a compression rate of 8100 to 1 were being met by the Dyson sphere. Setting the field to Max, I moved to the workbench to start the project. It was going to take a lot of time and a lot of hard work, but it was going to give me a huge leap toward making myself stronger and therefore my friends safer.

* * *

I had my Gauntleted hand through the Ring and in a tiger's mouth at the Franklin Park Zoo, the time dilation field temporarily suspended. I needed to get a good saliva sample for the cloning process to work. Gathering a swab's worth from the sleeping giant, I began to carefully pull my hand back when the sound of my phone made me jump. I bumped the roof of the tiger's mouth and her eyes shot open. Scrambling back, I shut the Ring off the second my fingertips were clear of the event horizon.

Looking at the PipBoy on my left arm, I saw that I had a message from the first Vet I'd visited; funding had just fallen through from a lot of their long-term donors, and they were going to have to put down almost a fourth of their residents. The shop was going to be locked up for at least twelve hours, and if a bunch of cages were gone by the time they got back, they would appreciate it.

I flipped the Ring back on and set the coordinates for the animal control building, then spun the rings until the opening was wide enough to walk through. I stopped to double check the new add-on I had made for the ring. While I'd previously been dropping temporary anchors and triangulating positions using Mel's place, my glove, and a tiny satellite to make small, temporary doorways to my workshop, it had irked me that I wasn't just stepping through the Ring for personal travel. Of course, the Ring's original purpose had only been to reach the connection point between me and Pro; it wasn't normally all that kind to organic matter that passed through it if you weren't careful. The Pipboy and Gauntlet were designed to keep my arms and anything I carried safe, but still, I'd been prevented from just using it as a Stargate.

The add-on changed that, finally. It was the only thing keeping me from being atomized by the temporal and dimensional shear. Once I was sure it was working I stepped back into reality. It had been a long while since I had stepped back, and I blinked at how bright it was and at the overwhelming scent of all the animals who lived here.

The sounds of animals crying out and shuffling around in their undersized cages slowed me down, just for a moment. There were a _lot_ of them in the "retiring residents" section I'd gotten the cats from. I shook it off and quickly grabbed some of the cages, then stepped back into the workshop and set them down in my large receiving area. It didn't take long to repeat the process half a dozen times, clearing out the section completely.

When I was done, I wrote a quick note and left it on one of the counters in a visible spot. It read, _If that's not enough, send me another message. I have plenty more room._

I checked the cages. I'd gotten several species of snakes, an iguana, a bird, 13 cats and 7 dogs. All of them were from species I already remotely taken samples of for the catalog, so I used a dropper to dose them all with nanites, which would take care of both their hunger and any murderous instincts. Walking over to a wall, I plucked a doorway receiver out of my Inventory. I reached up to place it on the wall above head height, then activated it.

A bright rainbow of colors coelesed below it, and slowly formed into a 6 foot tall archway; even with the Ring acting as my Stargate, I kept backup systems to get to the places I _really_ cared about. Beyond the rainbow-doorframe I could see the rocky surface of L33T's Planet Paradise (no relation to Planet L33t Land). As the light on the receiver blinked green, I started walking the cages through the arch.

I stepped through with the last cage and looked around. I'd never actually been here. Some lion cubs were wrestling to the left, I could make out a giraffe calf chasing an elephant calf off in the distance. The landscape looked kind of bleak.

The grey ground still had an ashy quality. While it had looked like the surface of the moon before I started the terraforming process, for some reason I imagined it changing once I gave the planet an atmosphere with the Terraforming Engine. It still just looked like a field after a volcano eruption. A ton of ash and rock, with tiny green sprouts coming out of the ground. I thought they would grow faster.

Staring out, it occured to me that the planet hadn't been accelerated in time, like I had. My Speed Seeds may grow far faster than mother nature's, but they still took time. It only had been a few days real time.

"Pro. What is our progress on project Game Master?" I asked my constant companion as I opened the cages, allowing the creatures to leave them at their own pace.

" _Sir, we are still waiting on their compiling. The collective hasn't expressed consciousness yet, but it seems to be close to emerging,"_ Pros said, sounding pleased.

"We're going to be fathers, buddy!" I exclaimed, half jokingly.

" _I am so proud, Sir."_

I was really hoping the synthetic intelligence would fulfill the role I had planned for him. I wanted someone who could interface with the hard light projectors I had based off the designs for the seekers. I wanted to see if I could transform some of the landscape into an actual video game, with environments and monsters and everything. Maybe not taste or smell (yet), but sight and sound and touch.

Thinking on it, I made a decision. Maybe giving him sensory input would help move along the emergence process.

"Give GM access to the Game Piece Fabricator. I want the world filled out as soon as possible, even if it's just with constructs and hard light. The biological flora can catch up after."

" _Alright, Sir. Game Master has been given access to the Game Piece Fabricator."_ Pro paused. " _GM has already begun to produce Pieces with the Fabricator, Sir."_

"I thought his consciousness was still coelessing?" I asked, not sure how the infant AI had managed to pull together so quickly.

" _It is, Sir. This occurrence should not be possible,"_ Pro replied, sounding worried.

"Any clue on what the issue is or what he's doing?"

" _He is creating pieces as fast as the Fabricator can produce them, Sir. Now he has directed them through the doorway."_

I looked behind me, to see a steady stream of translucent orbs, all identical in size, pouring through the rainbow doorway. I braced myself for anything. GM was untethered. If a synthetic intelligence killed me, I would at least die knowing I had never compromised my morals.

The wave of orbs passed me and a sound like an air compressor drew my attention over my shoulder. Standing three feet behind me was a towering oak tree.

Another pop-hiss and a 20 foot pine materialized a couple of yards to my right. Another pop and a knee high section of moss-covered cobblestone wall sprang forth down the road by the elephant and giraffe calves, both of which looked mildly annoyed at having their game interrupted. As more and more orbs moved on the world around me began forming into a sparse forest. It was crude, and some of the grass or trees were placed in random or illogical places, but nothing clipped into anything else and if you didn't know what to look for, it all would have seemed artificially planted. Not artificially _made_ , just placed in a way that nature hadn't intended.

As I stood looking on, confused, I realized that I could make out the sound of music softly coming out of the oak tree by my side. Listening carefully, it sounded like the relaxing exploration music from one of Bethesda's games.

"What am I witnessing here, buddy?" I whispered to Pro.

" _It seems that Game Master is fulfilling his purpose, Sir. Though his programming is not performing in any way I had predicted. We will have to wait and see what happens."_

"Well, hopefully this goes fine. We'll just wait and see," I said with a touch of hopefulness. Watching trees popping up across my now vastly improved eyesight made the whole world feel more habitable. I knew the hard light constructs were just facsimiles of the real thing, but they were hyper realistic and allowed me to suspend my disbelief easily. The tremorsense I now happily benefited from told me the hard light constructs included roots and everything the natural structure of a tree would need. GM was making the environment almost precisely anatomically correct.

"GM? Could you give me an enemy to fight? A clear one?" I asked into the ether. Music seemed to began to emanate from the oak next to me. Godzilla's theme, by Blue Oyster Cult reverberated across the landscape. Fuck. "Something more manageable, ya goof?"

The music shifted, and the Imperial March started to resonate from all around me. "Beware the innocents," I spoke out as a stormtrooper stood up from behind the mossy wall. The animals, sensing danger, either took off or backed up warily. I dove to the side as a red laser sailed through the spot I had, a brief moment before, inhabited. Turning the dive into a roll, I sprung up and sprinted to the Pine to my right. Crouching behind the tree I reached out forward into my inventory and drew out the Super Rifle as another red laser scorched the limb above my head. GM was already talented.

Flipping the setting to lethal, I waited for a volley of blaster fire to end before darting around the tree and lining up a shot with the stormtrooper's helmet. Pulling the trigger, I was rewarded with a dark black scoring in the stormtrooper's forehead, and the figure crumpling over the mossy wall.

"Thank you, Game Master, that was awesome! Pro, show me the stats I asked for from before the Docks fight again?"

 **[Strength: 207]  
[Constitution: 212]  
[Dexterity: 190]  
[Intelligence: 241]  
[Wisdom: 156]**

 **[Detect Ambush](Lvl. 155/1000)(77% to Next Level)**

 **[Intelligence](Lvl. 179/1000)(0% to Next Level)**

 **[Perception](Lvl. 209/1000)(19% to Next Level)**

 **[Sniper](Lvl. 214/1000)(03% to Next Level)**

 **[First Aid](Lvl. 101/1000)(62% to Next Level)**

 **[Athletics](Lvl. 411/1000)(18% to Next Level)**

 **[Boxing](Lvl. 799/1000)(34% to Next Level)**

 **[Climbing](Lvl. 124/1000)(05%2 to Next Level)**

 **[Hand to Hand Combat: Basic](Lvl. 273/1000)(55% to Next Level)**

 **[Judo](Lvl. 179/1000)(91% to Next Level)**

 **[Marathon](Lvl. 259/1000)(92% to Next Level)**

 **[Prowl](Lvl. 230/1000)(36% to Next Level)**

 **[Running](Lvl. 476/1000)(78% to Next Level)**

 **[Tumbling](Lvl. 187/1000)(02% to Next Level)**

Not a huge leap since I'd last checked them, but it was time to cease Tinkering and sciencing, and to start training. I had a lot of new animalistic improvements to test out. This whole hiatus I was taking from the real world was in order to protect my family. I hadn't actually made a lot of strides on the protection side of things, but I had Tinkered plenty. Now was the time to level up so I could become the defender that Newt and Elle and Rob needed.

"GM, a mile to the west of the door, could you please set up Serious Sam: The First Encounter? Make sure to protect the biologicals."

The circus music that opened the Serious Sam games played around me. I took that as confirmation. Jogging towards the pyramid that had appeared off in the distance, I grinned. It was time to game.

* * *

 **AN: Edited by jgjemmett**


	10. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

 **AUTHORS NOTE:**

 **Wildbow Owns Worm. Others own Other things. If I miss a disclaimer I will try and rectify that. I own nothing.**

* * *

 ****Leet****

I gasped for breath as I slid down the sandstone block. The Super Rifle was laid across my lap as my arms laid loosely at my sides. The sand blowing in from outside, through the shadowed doorway, was rough against my skin. GM was getting better at this _really_ quickly; if I hadn't known the sand wasn't real, I'd never have known the difference.

Fighting off the Beheaded Rocketeers from First Encounter had been an interesting experience. Dodging their rockets and yellow projectiles had tired me out, and I still wasn't sure how painful they would have been to get hit by. The Gnarr I hadn't been as lucky with. The one-eyed chest-face animal packed a wallop. I weathered it just fine. Whether it was the titanium on my bones or the bear and lizard genes increasing my endurance, the punches hadn't hurt all that terribly. I'd lost around 1% of my HP, the same as a solid hit from Rob during a spar.

The problem is that I knew what was beyond this doorway, and I didn't want to deal with the Beheaded Kamikaze dicks.

"GM? Drop the Serious Sam game?" I asked hopefully. Some part of me was worried he'd keep it going until I won, or something, even after I asked.

The Mario game over music began to play and suddenly I was hanging in the air, 4 feet off the grey ground of the planet. Gravity took over and I fell flat on my back. I grunted as I sat up.

"Thanks GM," I groaned. I pulled myself off the ground and began to jog back to the rainbow door.

"Pro. Make sure to coordinate with GM so that our sensors in the map display fake enemies and real ones. I would hate for someone to get hurt because they managed to sneak between worlds and got shot during a Metal Gear or Wolfenstein run."

" _Excellent idea, Sir. I'm not sure how I missed that safety precaution, but I'm glad you thought of it."_

"It's what teams are for," I said with a smile. "While I run, give me an update on the terraforming process?"

" _Of course, Sir. The process is on schedule. The portal you put on Planet Dead MonCalamari at the bottom of the ocean is still functioning at max capacity. The 10 smaller portals you placed from the pocket dimension to the points around the planet are also functioning properly. I project that we will reach our planned water levels in three and a half Earth weeks. The Speed Seeds have reached and are terraforming 83% of the surface area we've selected. The other 17% of land above sea level will be seeded within the week. The Game Master seems to be aware of and is not impeding their sprouting. Beyond that, everything seems to be working optimally."_

I smiled as I neared the gate. Stopping to pet a docile, friendly dog as I passed, I stepped through the rainbow arch and back into my workshop. Grabbing the receiver, I flipped it off and the rainbow door winked out of existence. I set that down on the workbench, then started around the fairly large workshop and considered it for a moment.

"Pro, how much energy would need to be diverted to give us 40 more acres in here?"

" _A considerable amount, Sir. Especially if we wanted to use the time dilation field on that area as well."_

"What are we looking at?"

" _We would be able to utilize a 20 to 1 time ratio, Sir."_

"Seems feasible." Using the PipBoy and its built in controls, I expanded the pocket dimension. The area before me twisted out in every direction, as if looking into a series of fractals. Random patches flared with some sort of magenta light, before settling into a much larger area, the extra energy expanding the edges of the workshop out almost faster than even my improved eyes could follow. I flipped on the time dilation field, which was a lot less visually stimulating, in that it had no visual effects at all.

Pulling up my inventory I slipped the Super Rifle back into its extra dimensional space. Closing that pocket, I opened up another that had only been used once before. I pulled out what looked like a gray, metal version of Hellboy's arm, then slipped it over my left hand and the PipBoy. I spun the arm portion a quarter of a turn and it locked in place with a satisfying click. With a thought, I ran a check on the gauntlet to make sure that it was functioning at peak condition for hand-to-hand combat. As always, the gauntlet was more than sufficient for the task.

"GM, I'm going in as I am. I want you to give me a challenge. Dealer's choice. Please and thank you," I said out into the large grey void of the new dimensional quarter mile cube of space.

" _No armor, Sir?"_ Pro asked, sounding concerned.

"We'll level Con more without it," I said as the world rippled in front of me, GM having already seeded the area with game pieces. A rocky cliff face sprang up from the ground in front of me. Metal walls and door materialized behind me, locking the encounter space off from anything important that might have been caught in the crossfire. I looked up to see an opening in the cliff face 40 feet above me. Light classical music filled the world around me.

"Good thinking on the equipment protection, GM," I praised the young AI, hooking a thumb over my shoulder at the metal bunker, then I rubbed my hands together and approached the cliffside. I grabbed hold of a bit of rock jutting out of the cliff face and started hauling myself up, one handhold at a time. My climbing skill wasn't great, but the whole point was to train, so I did my best to scale the cliff.

It was slow going, but I managed to pull myself into the opening without any trouble. Whether it was an easy climb or the mountain goat nanites I had injected 3 months ago, workshop time, I wasn't sure.

The opening turned out to be a stone corridor, with large bricks forming an arching tunnel that stretched out in front of me into darkness. The music changed to a quiet, deep melody. The soothing ambiance didn't hide the more menacing sounds echoing from beyond my sight. The darkness was pervasive enough to overcome the low light vision I had gained from Miles and the other cats.

Walking forward slowly, I trailed one hand along the wall to keep my bearings, just in case GM wanted to treat me to a maze. I hadn't needed to. The classical music shifted to something with a faster, more violent pace, and I held my Gauntlet and metal Hellboy arm at the ready.

Out of the darkness surged four enemies, two leading the charge and two lagging a bit behind, the bone of their skulls artificially bright in the gloom. Their empty eye sockets and permanent fleshless smiles were disquieting. Skeletons. Naked and armed only with a single rusty short sword apiece, they closed the distance in seconds.

The first came in fast, sword low and pointed forward, attempting to use its mass and speed to drive the sword into my gut and disembowel me. I swung my left Hellboy-armored fist down and out as I stepped into the charge. The sword snapped out and into the wall, the bones of the monster's arm cracking and splintering. 30 or 40 pounds of bone had nothing on my augmented mass.

The second skeleton, barely a step behind, swung straight down with a two-handed cleave. I grabbed the first by a rib with my right gauntleted hand, stepped forward and planted my right foot well within its guard, then pivoted with as much force as I could muster and slammed my left elbow into the second's ribs as hard as I could.

The second skeleton lost its sword in the swing, which continued over my right shoulder and glanced off my gauntlet even as the monster's chest shattered and it was sent careening back down the hall, right into the second half of the assault.

I planted my feet and flexed, the ribcage of the first skeleton cracking in protest as I pivoted again and swung the creature in a massive arc. I released my unwilling projectile into the next two skeletons, and cheered when it crashed into both of them. Skeleton three had already been off balance after being knocked to the side by skeleton two, so having a skull smashed into its own had knocked it completely to the ground. Skeleton four caught the rest of skeleton one in its chest, taking it down as well.

The pile of tangled writhing bones, all focused on getting up instead of untangling themselves, would have been comical if it weren't still trying to kill me. Looking down at my sneakers I realized I couldn't stomp them like I wanted. I sighed and rolled my eyes.

'Inventory. Steel Toe Work Boots.'

The boots materialized and dropped into my hands. Leaning against the wall I pulled off my shoes and dematerialized them into my Inventory and closed it. I glanced over at the skeletons as I slid the first boot onto my left foot. One of them had pulled its top half free and had abandoned its legs to the pile. Its spine was trailing behind it like the Terminator as it pulled itself towards me.

It lunged as I tried getting my right boot on as fast as possible. More from trying to dodge than the attack itself, I fell over before I could plant my foot back down. Landing on my side I kicked out with my left foot, catching the half skeleton in the skull, shattering it.

Sitting up, I tightened the laces on my boots and quickly tied them. I stood up and brushed myself off before walking over to the remaining skeletons and stomping on their skulls. The bones kept twitching, but nothing happened beyond that. A few moments later, the drumbeats of combat shifted down to something a little more eerie, and the bones laid still.

Taking a breath, I looked over my victory. Then I let out a long belly laugh.

"GM?" I looked up at the roof of the cave, grinning like a loon. "You're fucking awesome."

GM didn't answer me with words, but the eerie music started fading out, and the combat drums slowly faded back in. I ran down the hall into the darkness, and if I could, I'd have smiled wider. 4 more skeletons changed at me in a closer formation, but these ones also had small round rusted shields on their right arms. I picked up speed and charged forward, shoulder down as I slammed into the first skeleton and kept charging without slowing. The first skeleton slammed into the second behind it as I pushed forward, their combined weight only a quarter of my own.

I carried them further down the hall on my left shoulder. Reaching across my chest with my right arm, I grabbed the leg of the first and threw them back to the right as I slid to a stop. It bounced off the right wall, dragging the third with them. It looked like the third's rib cage got caught in the first.

I left them behind me as I dashed back towards the other two skeletons I had changed past. Grabbing one's sword by the blade as it swung at me, I kicked the other as hard as I could in the knee as it moved past the other. Using my free hand I drove four metal clad fingers, two into each eye socket of the first skeleton and yanked down, removing the entire front half of its skull. The other was falling behind it, missing the bottom half of its left leg.

Pushing the faceless enemy onto its partner, I turned and jogged back down the tunnel. I took the time to stomp on the two rib-locked skeleton's heads, before continuing down the tunnel.

I continued to jog for a moment before I heard a grinding sound beneath my feet.

Traps. Damn it.

With the warning I had, I was unsurprised by the 10 foot oaken battering ram that swung down and slammed into my abdomen with crushing force.

As I bounced down the corridor, I glanced at my Health Bar. 57%. Not bad. It was beginning to fill up again, too. Guess between the titanium weave and subdermal layer of graphene armor, my Defense stat must be pretty good.

Feeling my shoulder tear out of the socket as I slid to a stop, I grimaced. Maybe not _that_ good.

"Pro. Remind me to reinforce my joints." I said with a groan.

" _Yes, Sir."_ Pro said with a hint of sarcasm in his voice.

I laid on the floor and waited for the nanites to put me back together. After a couple of moments I stood up and stretched. I rolled my shoulder a few times to get the kinks out.

Walking back down the hall I carefully avoided the pressure plate that triggered the trap, seeing as the 1 foot diameter battering ram was nowhere to be seen.

Getting beyond that, I moved forward more cautiously. After a short distance I found a set of cast iron spiral stairs ascending into an opening in the ceiling.

Climbing carefully, I made my way up into the darkness. Counting stairs, I reached a closed Iron Door at 300 steps. Hell of a climb. Feeling around in the dark, I found no handle or latch. Thinking through the problem and some of my new practical engineering knowledge, I began to feel the edges of the doorway. Eventually I found the hinges set into the right hand face. Using the Gauntlet's multitool function, I pulled the pins from the 5 separate hinges. Heavy door.

Easing it open as quietly as I could, I peered through the crack. The back of a throne greeted me. I looked to be in some sort of gladiatorial arena, at least as far as I could tell with the throne in front of me.

The weirdest part of the room was how it sounded. It reminded me of an empty hockey arena, with only a few players practicing on the ice. A hollow, echoing expanse, near silent but for the occasional sharp click of a stick hitting the ice or the puck. However, in this case the clicking was the sound of two figures I could just barely make out far below me on the sand floor. They may have been fighting with swords, but it was hard to tell at this distance. Looking around the arena I saw hundreds, if not thousands of silent skeletons all facing the combatants. As the figures moved in the arena all of the skulls in the room shifted to follow.

What the fuck inspired this? Props to GM's imagination. It was horrific without gore. Unsettling and creepy.

Suddenly something shoved me from behind and I was falling. I caught myself with both hands before my face smashed into the floor, but just barely.

Rolling sideways, I saw every eye in the stadium on me, including what looked like a giant skeleton with a crude iron crown peering at me from around its seat on the throne. Everything stopped for a long moment, leaving me standing awkwardly next to the throne in view of the entire stadium.

Suddenly the stillness broke. A wave of bone and iron made its way toward me from both directions of the stands. The Skeleton King pulled itself to its feet and grabbed a ridiculously sized battle axe from beside its throne.

The thunk of an arrow planting itself near my face broke me from my reverie. I rolled away from the throne and stood, glancing back to look for the entrance I came through. Unfortunately it was missing, which meant I was stuck in a boss battle with a ton of mobs. There was no sign of whatever had pushed me down.

My mini-map was just a mass of red, and everything was either charging me or shooting at me. It was a do or die moment, which really only left one choice.

"LEEROY JENKINS!" I screamed, ducking under a swing of a titanic axe and charging towards the line of approaching skeletons from the top rows of seats.

The setting was perfect for me, as it was going to be fairly easy to avoid getting mobbed. The stadium was a large circular cavern with levels carved out of the stone. Each level was 10 feet tall and ten feet wide with only 4 sets of stairs carved at the compass points. Sure, there were a series of cat walks far above me with archers doing their best to kill me, but I only had enemies coming from two directions instead of surrounding me. I just needed to stay on one level and avoid getting forced into a place where I could be surrounded.

I was running left, with a stone wall to my left and an open drop to my right, so when I got to the first skeleton I batted it to the right out into the lower stands and kept running. With the only noise being the occasional clicking of bones and clattering of inaccurate arrows, I could easily hear the crash of metal on stone as the skeleton and its armaments tumbled down in the direction of the stadium floor.

Shoulder checking another skeleton into the stone wall, I felt the bite of an arrow in my shoulder. The wound was shallow with my subdermal armor, but it reminded me to stay alert. I used the mini map to check where the King was, which seemed to be right on top of me, so I juked to the left, spun as fast as I could, dropped low to the ground in a sprinter's stance, then shot off back toward the throne, just by the Skeleton King's huge form. The crash of metal behind me sounded like I'd narrowly avoided a lot of pain. Hopefully this would put some distance between me and him. I needed to clean up the mobs before I tackled him.

Batting a second skeleton off the ledge, I considered my options. I wanted to stick to training hand to hand, but this was a terrible challenge for that. Maybe I should let them mob me? Train up my Con while trying to take down the King. Sliding to a stop, I dropped into a crouch and took off back towards the King. The bite of a sword nicking my back didn't slow me, and its effect on my health bar was minimal.

I hadn't gone far before changing my mind, maybe 20 feet, and I moved far faster than anything else here. The King was just turning around when I got back to him. I went wide, pushing a skeleton out of the way as I ran to the wall, pushed off of it as hard as I could, and Rugby tackled the 12 foot giant skeleton around the waist. My momentum easily carried us far over the ledge, where gravity took over.

The King tried to swing the massive axe at me as we fell, but I was far inside his guard. Before he could get a second swing in his back impacted the edge of a ledge a few levels below where we started. The jarring force nearly dislodged me, but I clung on.

We crashed hard into the level below that, my weight driving the King's skull into the stone where it shattered. I impacted the stone a beat after. I narrowly avoided the same fate by getting my hand against the ground before rolling over the next ledge and fell onto the arena floor. The sand cushioned the impact on my back. So much for keeping myself out of open areas.

Looking at my HP, I was pleased to see that my brilliant plan cost me less than the trap had earlier. I was roused from my thoughts by a loud grunt and a solid kick to my ribs. It sent me airborne and into a roll. My ribs would have collapsed if the weren't wrapped in titanium.

Scrambling to my feet, I quickly saw what I'd missed. The gladiators, well gladiator. The huge, most likely ork, gladiator and the nearby corpse of a former human gladiator. This work seemed like more of an appropriate hand to hand challenge.

He lumbered towards me, I moved to meet him. His hands came down to slam into me with an overhead hammer blow. I stepped forward and dipped to the left, punching him with my right where his kidneys would be on a human. I was rewarded with a grunt as he stepped back. I tried to follow but he moved his hands to grab me surprisingly fast. I hopped back. He bound forward, trying to bowl me over with his superior size and weight.

He succeeded. I was a breath too slow and was knocked back to the ground, where he pounced on top of me. As we grappled, I realized I had very few wrestling skills. He got a hold of my wrist and began to twist, seemingly trying to tear my left hand off. Rude. Then he turned it in just the wrong way, making me grunt and try to yank it back. The sudden burst of pain reminded me that, game or not, this was a fight I didn't want to lose, even if everything would heal in short order.

As my wrist contorted I grasped out, trying to find purchase. With him on top of me, I felt like I was getting crushed and he was having his wicked way with one of my arms. He roared in his apparent victory as I felt my entire arm twist and my elbow and shoulder tear, my hellboy hand preventing him from breaking my wrist. His mouth wide, slobber dripping down, I shoved my free arm forward into his gaping maw, The Gauntlet with it. His eyes widened in surprise as I forced my arm into the back of his throat.

He let go as he began to choke. He tried to stand, but I wrapped my legs around his waist. He tried prying me off of him, but I grabbed tight, looking for a handhold in his throat once I had pushed past his tongue and behind his jaw. My fingers sank into the meat behind his lower jaw, from the inside.

He was smacking my face now, the pain making my vision go fuzzy, but I focused and pulled harder, bringing my feet around him and pushing away from his chest. I felt his jaw begin to give as I pulled as hard as I could. The sharp pain in my back as he rammed me against the arena wall couldn't deter me. I pulled with every bit of strength I had and was finally rewarded with a wet pop and a gurgling wheeze as his lower jaw ripped off fully in my hand.

I dropped the bloody jaw on the floor and I brought a fist down on the wrist of the arm he was using to hold me against the wall. The pop of a broken bone was my reward.

He stumbled back.

"We good, dick bag?!" I shouted at him. Under all of the adrenaline, I felt bad. Logically, I knew he was a facsimile of life created by GM, but I hated hurting living things. Even if they were jerks who kick you when you're down.

He snarled, or what passes as a jawless snarl, and charged me. He grabbed at me with his huge green hands and I ducked back, my elbow scraping against the wall. He reared his right arm back, and threw a powerful, if telegraphed punch at my face. I snapped out, meeting his right wrist with my left metal clad fist. His momentum carried his now broken arm into the wall full tilt, and the wet dull splintering of his arm made me wretch. He gave into the pain and blood loss as he collapsed then and there.

The rest of the skeletons hadn't been idle as I'd fought the Orc Gladiator. The fight had just been swift and vicious enough that they were just making it to our position on the arena floor. I hadn't even noticed the few impotent stabs they had managed, nor the arrows. Now I was paying attention to them again and watched as they shambled as one calcium heavy tide around me. From all around, skeletons surged down on to the arena's sandy stage, and I prepared myself to take them all on.

It was really rather anticlimactic. Like, grinding for boars in WoW, anticlimactic.

The fight could be summed up in a few words: Good armor and regen beat the baby mobs.

The task was simple, if not tedious. The only part I thought was even a little interesting was climbing up to fight the archers; that was harrowing due purely to the height and fear of falling.

Looking around the hall of corpses and bones, I made my way to an opening in the arena I hadn't seen from the King's throne, following it out onto the side of a mountain. I saw down near the base, where I saw a tent which I made my way towards. Stumbling down the rocky path, I arrived at the flap of the tent fairly quickly.

Opening the flap the world disappeared in motes of light. I fell a dozen feet to the ground, but managed to stay up right, leaving me standing some distance away from my workshop in a light grey field of extradimensional surface.

"GM," I exhaled, chuckling aloud at the insanity of it all. "That was great! That whole thing was crazy, good job buddy." I wandered over to my workstation and grabbed a bottle of water, downing it in a couple quick gulps. Time permitting, I think I'd be happy to do this forever. "Want to try something else after I get healed back up?"

The triumphant blaring of Final Fantasy's victory theme music seemed to be a yes.

 **AN: Edited by jgjemmett**


End file.
